UKRAINE'S KUCHMA ORDERS GOVERNMENT TO CUT SPENDING. President Leonid Kuchma has told the cabinet that it must cut spending rather than seek new revenues in order to lower the budget deficit in 1998 and thus reduce the need for foreign borrowing, Interfax reported on 5 January, quoting Kuchma's adviser Anatoliy Galchinskiy. In the past, Kyiv has stressed improving tax collection, rather than cutting expenditures, as the best way to reduce the budget deficit. PG

UKRAINE INSISTS BRITAIN YIELD EMBASSY
BUILDING. The Ukrainian government is insisting that the United Kingdom give up an embassy building in Kyiv because of concerns that embassy officials may overhear conversations of President Kuchma, who lives next door, the newspaper "Vseukrayinskiye vedomosti" reported on 5 January. Questions of compensation have not yet been resolved, the newspaper said. PG