WASHINGTON -- Westinghouse Electric Corp., breaking industry ranks, has agreed to help improve the safety of potentially risky nuclear power reactors in the former Soviet Union without being insured by the U.S. government.


Terry Lash, the director of nuclear energy at the Energy Department, said the department has a working agreement with Westinghouse to proceed with the task through a program administered by the department.


The job would include the installation of safety equipment, such as fire doors and cooling valves.


"We've been informed by Westinghouse that they are prepared to work with the department to perform safety upgrades and related activities in Russia and the Ukraine," said Lash, who added that the department and Westinghouse must negotiate final details.


Westinghouse officials would not comment on the matter.


Some work has been done in Russia and Ukraine by a number of U.S. corporations working through Associated Universities Inc., or AUI, which operates Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, Energy Department officials said.


But through AUI, the corporations, including Westinghouse, giant Bechtel Power Corp., NUS Corp. in Gaithersburg, Md., and Babcock & Wilcox Co. of Lynchburg, Va., informed the Energy Department six weeks ago that unless the Energy Department could arrange for adequate indemnification, they would have to pull out of the program.


The companies fear that if they provide plans or hardware to upgrade poorly designed and deteriorating plants, they could be held responsible for billions of dollars in damages in the event of a disaster.


Russia and Ukraine have signed agreements with the United States to protect U.S. firms from potential lawsuits. But most of the U.S. firms involved say they would require more than those guarantees, according to Omer F. Brown II, a Washington lawyer for the companies.


Companies performing nuclear work for the government in the United States are insured against damages from an accident under U.S. law, but the law does not apply to overseas work.


Russia and Ukraine have shown impatience with the slow U.S. follow-up to a 1992 agreement under which the United States and European nations would assist the former Soviet republics in preventing another accident such as the Chernobyl disaster of April 1986.


Much of the $101 million that the U.S. government has allotted to fund reactor improvements in Russia and the Ukraine has yet to be used, Lash said.


The U.S. government has estimated that it could cost up to $20 billion to bring plants in the former Soviet republics close to Western standards.


U.S. Vice President Al Gore has taken a strong interest in the issue and discussed it in his talks with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin , Lash said.


He said that three national laboratories -- the Pacific Northwest Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Laboratory are expected to be involved in the nuclear safety program in Russia and Ukraine. They will conduct training programs and help coordinate operations between the two sides.


The highest priority is to improve the safety of Chernobyl-type water-cooled graphite moderated reactors, which accounted for 35 percent of total nuclear electrical energy produced in 1991 in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc nations. Such reactors have been marked by unstable reactor behavior and unsatisfactory shutdown systems, nuclear experts say.