Lithuania, Russia Agree on Pullout : Baltics: The last of 20,500 former Soviet troops are to leave about a year earlier than planned.

MOSCOW — Russia and Lithuania managed Tuesday to resolve one of the hottest disputes yet over the pullout of old Red Army troops from the former Soviet territory, agreeing to an Aug. 31, 1993, deadline.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis worked out a date for the departure of the last of 20,500 former Soviet troops still on the soil of the small Baltic country that was about a year earlier than Russia had planned.

“This is a significant, mutual achievement,” a smiling Landsbergis told reporters. “Both Russia and Lithuania want to expand trust and cooperation. The major obstacle in the past is (now) being removed.”

The Soviet Union invaded and annexed Lithuania and the other Baltic republics, Latvia and Estonia, after dictator Josef Stalin concluded a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939. They gained full independence after the failed coup attempt in the Soviet Union in August of 1991. Lithuanians, branding the remaining ex-Soviet troops an “occupation army,” were so eager for a full, quick pullout that they even held a referendum on the issue this summer, voting by more than 90% to demand a total withdrawal by the end of the year.

Landsbergis said Tuesday, “I think we wouldn’t have moved as far as we did today without the referendum.”

After the Baltic states achieved independence, Russia willingly agreed in principle to clear the region of the troops, which it now controls. But it refused to move as quickly as the Baltic republics wished, saying it lacks housing and jobs for the returning troops, which are estimated to total about 130,000. Moscow is already pressed to absorb soldiers returning from the former East Germany, who are all due home by the end of 1994.

Russian defense officials repeatedly stalled the negotiations on the issue, and Latvia and Estonia still lack timetables on the withdrawal.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vitaly Churkin said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that the Lithuania agreement “cannot be automatically applied to those military units stationed in Latvia and Estonia.” Churkin repeated concerns that the two former republics are discriminating against ethnic Russians living on their soil.

Lithuanians have special reason to be sensitive about the troop presence, remembering the crackdown on nationalists in the then-Soviet republic in January of 1991 that left 14 dead when Soviet troops assaulted the capital’s television tower.

The agreement signed Tuesday by the Russian and Lithuanian defense ministers bans patrols in Lithuania’s streets by the former Soviet troops and gives Lithuanian police the right to confiscate their weapons.

Landsbergis said he hopes that once the former Soviet troops leave the Baltics, the region will end up less militarized than it had been under the Kremlin’s rule.

“This means less tension not only for Lithuania itself but for Europe as a whole,” he said.

The troops began their Baltic withdrawal last spring, but only small numbers were leaving and local governments were openly dissatisfied with the pullout’s progress. Tuesday’s agreement provided a schedule and breakdown for each division’s exit, and officials said that troops were already beginning to leave the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Tuesday.

Along with the Baltic republics’ own demands, Russia had been pressed by international bodies such as the Group of Seven industrial nations and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe finally to set a timetable for the pullout.