Soviet Breakup Sharpens Doubts over Arms Control Republics Promise Non-Nuclear Status, but Balk at Sending Weapons to Russia

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IN a deadpan declaration, apparently devoid of the emotions of the historic moment, the three Slavic republics of Russia, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine wiped away the Soviet Union on Sunday.

"We ... state that the USSR is ceasing its existence as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality," the leaders of the three states declared.

But the disappearance of the Soviet Union does not mean the end to its most powerful attribute as a superpower - the tens of thousands of nuclear warheads mounted on missiles, on artillery shells, and on aircraft across the vast territory of the former Union. Those nuclear weapons are now deployed on the territory of the …