Tuesday, March 19, 1996 KIEV, Ukraine (Reuter) - U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher offered additional aid for victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and pledged to help prevent a repetition of "one of the most cruel legacies of communism." But senior Ukrainian officials complained the West had no understanding of their difficulties in fulfilling a pledge to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power station by the year 2000 and were not making good on promises to help fund the operation. Speaking after a tour of a hospital caring for children with illnesses believed linked to the disaster, Christopher said the catastrophe "caused thousands of deaths and severely taxed Ukraine's financial resources." "It continues to reach into the future to claim new victims and indeed the spectre of another Chernobyl continues to hang over the region," he said. "It was the product of a closed, authoritarian government. It was one of the most cruel legacies of communism, a system that managed to produce virtually all the evils of industrialization with very few of the benefits." Christopher, who spent half an hour chatting with sick children or their parents, said $10 million in new aid would be provided for the 10th anniversary of the disaster next month, including a mobile laboratory to monitor radiation. He pledged to help Ukraine tackle its problems at next month's Moscow summit on nuclear issues of wealthy G7 countries. "In April at the summit, we'll help to ensure that there will be no more Chernobyls," he said. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko said the West was taking no account of Ukraine's needs in seeking the closure of two reactors still functioning at the plant. Udovenko said the main concern was dealing with the ruins of Chernobyl's fourth reactor, which exploded April 26, 1986, and the cracking concrete structure hurriedly erected around it and due to be replaced. Environment Minister Yuri Kostenko went further, saying the West had done nothing to begin implementing a memorandum Ukraine signed with G7 countries in December providing for $2.3 billion in aid and credits. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is to attend part of the summit despite what Western diplomats said was resistance to the idea by the Russian hosts. Ukraine has invited Vice President Al Gore to the April 26 commemorations. Meanwhile, the U.N. nuclear safeguards agency said it was co-sponsoring a conference in Vienna next month on the effects on health and the environment 10 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in Vienna the meeting, organized with the the European Commission and the World Health Organization, would take place from April 8 to 12.