Ukraine Update: Missile Mayhem.

The new Ukrainian government continues to contend with the fall out from the dealings of the last Kuchma regime. I mentioned yesterday that Yushchenko has shown a tendency to fall into a kind of minor-league imitation of his predecessor when reporting on his government's actions. David Crouch, writing in the Guardian has noticed the same thing:

The suicide two weeks ago of former interior minister Yuri Kravchenko, a key witness in investigations into the outgoing leadership's criminal exploits, has been widely blamed on the government putting its own interests before the legal process - a hallmark of ex-president Leonid Kuchma's years in power.

Mr Yushchenko's announcement on March 1 that the murder four years ago of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze had been "solved" - before the case had gone to court and with many questions still unanswered - met with widespread scepticism in the press and from Gongadze's family. On March 8, President Yushchenko dismissed calls for the general prosecutor to resign over his handling of the case.

 

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Under Mr Kuchma, Ukrainians became accustomed to declarations that high-profile crimes had been conveniently solved, only for officials later to retract their claims in the face of new evidence.

The Financial Times has belatedly taken up the story of Ukraine's arms transfers to Iran and China:

Petro Poroshenko, secretary of Ukraine's National Security Council, said he had ordered the Defence Ministry and SBU secret police to make a full account of the arsenal, which was supposed to have been destroyed or transferred to Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Mr Poroshenko also promised an "objective, unprejudiced and transparent" investigation of the smuggling case and a review and strengthening of arms-export controls "in order to rule out any recurrence".

However, he said it was up to the judge to decide whether to lift a secrecy order on the trial of one of the smuggling suspects.

See my background here. It was supposed that Ukraine had disposed of its cold-war era nuclear arsenal. Two men are in custody, including Russian "businessman" Oleg Orlov who is waiting extradition in the Czech Republic. Poroshenko is insisting that this is not evidence that a crime has been committed by the Ukrainian government.

The missile in question, the X-55, is a cruise missile with a range of 3,000 km and has the capability of flying under radar. However, they are relatively easy to shoot down when detected. Ballistic missiles are more likely to be used for delivering nuclear warheads. They X-55 is considered to be too small to carry most older nuclear warheads. The missiles were supposed to have been stripped of their nuclear payloads before the smuggling took place.

This point is interesting because it raises the speculation that if these missiles have been stripped of their nuclear payloads, did the Kuchma regime pull a fast one on Iran and China by delivering what is basically a fake nuke or are the two countries actually now in possession of a nuclear delivery system?

Prosecutor General Pyskun is busy trying to spin his latest foot-in-mouth episode
[Note:previous link was bad. Fixed now]. The government seems not able to handle the rapid-fire of events whizzing past their heads.

The agreement to sell 18 nukes to China and Iran was fraudulently arranged by official Ukrainian departments, such as the Defense Ministry and the Security Service. It was revealed as a result of the investigation that the missile deal was based on a fabricated contract with the Russian state-owned defense corporation Rosvooruzhenie (Russian Arms). The document was legalized, but there was no name or even signature of a responsible person stated on the document. Vladimir Yevdokimov, the director of the Ukrainian arms export company Ukraviazakaz, turned out to be the only defendant on the case, which was filed in February 1st, 2004.

Yevdokimov's lawyer, Bogdan Ferenz, is trying to make the matter look like a trivial shady deal. All the missiles, which had been sold to China and Iran, were expired, the lawyer believes. In addition, Bogdan Ferenz is certain that the missiles had been stored under terrible conditions, which turned them into scrap metal.

"According to international agreements, the missiles should have been either sold to Russia or destroyed," Ukrainian deputy Grigori Omelchenko said. "They destroyed model missiles, drew up acts of missile destruction, which were subsequently kept at Defense Ministry's warehouses. President Leonid Kuchma was informed about it personally," the deputy said.

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine said that the missile case had nothing to do with the incumbent Ukrainian administration. The US embassy in Kiev, however, set out its concerns about the situation. The above-mentioned deal resulted in what Washington was afraid of most: China and Iran got hold of the up-to-date strategic weapon. The Russian strategic bomber plane Tu-160 is armed with X-55 missiles. The range ability of the missile is about 3,000 kilometers. It is capable of flying at low altitudes, which makes it hard to be intercepted.

Here is a picture:

Reportedly, China and Iran are yet to possess the ability to carry the X-55, nor digital maps of targets.

Meanwhile, Viktor Yushchenko is making good on a campaign promise to pull Ukrainian troops from Iraq. The Ukrainian effort in the Iraq coalition was widely seen as a ploy by Kuchma to deflect US anger at his alleged sale of radar systems to Saddam. Former Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk says that Ukraine "wooed the West on Iraq:"

Tarasyuk told reporters the motives of former President Leonid Kuchma and his advisers were seemingly noble -- to help the Iraqi people ensure the democratic development of the country and preserve stability.

"But in fact -- which nobody said officially -- the
motive was to actually buy the West's, primarily the United States', favor at the expense of Ukrainian peacekeepers. This is what was expected. The same, by the way, concerns the rhetoric about joining NATO," he said, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

Yushchenko is currently in Turkmenistan to discuss a gas pipeline deal with Saparmurat Niyasov, also know as Turkmenbashi, who is regarded as Europe's last Soviet-era dictator.

UPDATE: abdymok has a full translation of Chernikov's article here.

Comments

[Connard]

"Reportedly, China and Iran are yet to possess the ability to carry the X-55"

Actually, you can modify an Su-27 to carry a Kh-55 pretty easily. Both China and Iran have Su-27s.

[Daniel]

I did know that the two countries owned the Sukhoi "Flanker," but I wasn't sure that the retrofit was all that easy. I'll take your word for that. Any details we should know about?

[Connard]

I'm not a technical expert by any means, but I do some work in this field and I do know it's possible. If they were to be used as a nuclear delivery vehicle, the difficult part wouldn't be figuring out a way to launch the cruise missile, it would be figuring out a way to get a nuclear warhead small enough to fit in the missile. Hell, you don't even necessarily need an air platform to launch these things. Remember during the Iraq war when those cruise missiles hit the shopping center in Kuwait? I don't recall the Iraqi Air Force or Navy launching those. Hell, I don't think there WAS an Iraqi Air Force or Navy to speak of.

I should also note that it amuses me a bit to read reports about this transfer that assert that the Kh-55 is not a serious threat. True, it's not as dangerous as a ballistic missile, but I don't recall reading much scoffing at the capabilities of a Tomahawk.

[Daniel]

You're right, of course. A nuke is a nuke no matter how slow, to paraphrase Dr. Seuss.

Thanks for illuminating the point for me.