Glenn Reynolds likes to point out that democratic revolution is a process, not an event. Sometimes the process is fairly painful or at least embarrassing to watch. As recently liberalized governments learn to deal with scandalous pasts and new demands for more transparency, there will inevitably be stories that open old wounds, reveal new problems and burn hot before losing the public's attention.
Six weeks ago, Peter Byrne wrote about the Ukrainian transfer of missiles to Iran and China in 1999-2000.
after launch, it climbs to the edge of space and then dives on the target steeply at mach 5, making it very hard to hit.
see what the missile looks like here. another good link is here.
it's a x-55sm, a.k.a. Kh-55/RKV-500/Kh-65 or AS-15 Kent (NATO).
six wound up in china and six went to iran, according to hryhory omelchenko, a parliament deputy who on dec. 28 wrote yushchenko a letter with details about the deal.
Now the Financial Times has picked up the story (subscription pitch alert):
Ukraine has admitted that it exported 12 cruise missiles to Iran and six to China amid mounting pressure from other countries to explain how the sales occurred.
Svyatoslav Piskun, Ukraine's prosecutor-general, told the FT that 18 X-55 cruise missiles, also known as Kh-55s or AS-15s, were exported in 2001. None of the missiles was exported with the nuclear warheads they were designed to carry. However, Japan and the US say they are worried by what appears to have been a significant leak of technology from the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal.
Reuters (via Wired News) has Piskun (whom Peter notes has a reputation for lying) recanting, sort of:
Piskun's office described the Financial Times account as untrue, drawing a distinction between formal export and what he described as smuggling.
"At issue in this interview is not the export of missiles but rather smuggling," a prosecution statement said.
"The SBU (security service) has launched a criminal case against the director of the Ukraviazakaz firm, V. Yevdokimov, in this connection. This case has been examined since August 2004 by the Kiev regional appeal court in closed session."
The affair highlighted the problems faced in imposing control on the Soviet legacy of military high technology, especially in core republics of the former Soviet military-industrial complex such as Ukraine.
The US has accused the Kuchma regime of selling aircraft detection systems to Saddam Hussein in the past. Yushchenko is confronted with yet another conundrum regarding the former government's actions. How far can he go in pushing for more investigation without implicating current government officials?
From Kerala:
Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk told reporters during a visit to Minsk, the capital of the neighboring former Soviet republic of Belarus, Friday the government of newly-elected, pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko was investigating the alleged 2001 exports, Interfax-Ukraine said.
However, Yushchenko's government was "not responsible for what our predecessors were doing," Tarasyuk said Friday."All we can do about the instances of unsanctioned handovers of types of armaments that took place in Ukraine is discuss them," he said according to the Interfax-Ukraine report.
Defence Talk has some background:
The X-55, an air-launched missile also known as the Kh-55 and AS-15 and first introduced in 1976, has a range of 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles), which would give China — or North Korea, if it obtained the missile — easy access to Japan, while Iran could hit its main regional foe, Israel.
Both Japan and the United States were reportedly worried about what appeared to be a significant leak of military technology.
Last month, the Ukrainian government opened a criminal inquiry, at the request of Japan, into the illegal sale of 18 missiles by the Ukrspetsexport arms group to unspecified states via Russia.
The transfer also heightens concerns over Iran's nuclear program, although the X-55 is not as likely to be used by Iran as a carrier for a nuclear payload as is its own Shahab ballistic missile. Doug Richardson of Jane's Missiles and Rockets point out that:
“If they’re going to nuclearize a weapon, they’re much more likely to do so with one of their ballistic missiles. A ballistic missile, simply because of its sheer speed, is more difficult to defend against than a cruise missile,” he said, calling the Shahab “almost unstoppable.”
A cruise missile, on the other hand, travels at subsonic speed comparable to that of an airplane, he added.
Ukraine is now embarking on a multi-pronged foreign policy. Yushchenko has explicitly expressed his ambition for his country to join the EU (which, incidentally, is due to lift its arms embargo against China in June) while playing a balanced game with Vladimir Putin:
KIEV: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Viktor Yushchenko yesterday pledged stronger ties but failed to make any significant breakthroughs as Mr Putin ended his first visit to Kiev since last year's "orange revolution".
"During the course of today's meetings, we did not get a feeling that there are problems in our relations," Mr Putin said at a joint press conference with Mr Yushchenko."They simply do not exist. There are simply questions that we will solve at a normal pace."
[...]
Mr Yushchenko, whose election victory turned Ukraine away from Russia and towards the West, agreed: "Today's meeting . . . allowed the conclusion that we have no unanswerable questions."
But behind the smiles and cordial words, the neighbouring states failed to make any breakthroughs on major issues of disagreement.
Top among these is an economic union between Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine that is being pushed by Moscow but that Mr Yushchenko has said he would not sign if it endangered Kiev's chances of eventual European Union membership.
Yushchenko is also due in the United States this spring. His advance man seems to have done the job:
By all accounts, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Tarasiuk had a successful visit to Washington. The level of meetings was high and the amount of time spent with American administration was more than originally anticipated.
In less than two full days, Tarasiuk met Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the great disarmament advocate senator Richard Lugar, Senate majority leader Bill Frist, and Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations Henry Hyde.
Tarasiuk spoke with Cheney for about half an hour, which was twice the planned time, so hopefully they talked about more than just the weather.
Yet Ukraine faces challenges here similar to those it must deal with at home:
Formerly, Embassy workers were tightlipped like spies under interrogation regarding any Ukrainian statesmen’s visits to Washington. Now they are openly communicating, making phone calls and even write e-mails about it.
However, rumor has it in D.C. that Ukrainian Ambassador Mikhailo Resnik is hard to catch in public and can only be seen once a year laying flowers at the monument of Taras Shevchenko.
Mr. Resnik was not at all seen in public during the days of the Orange Revolution, a time when the role of the Ukrainian Ambassador in describing the events in Ukraine to the American mass media would have been of extreme importance. The explanation is very simple because, you see, he is very modest. Besides, he is a consistent Yanukovich supporter.
This is how the face of Ukraine looks today in America.
Yushchenko is scheduled to speak at Harvard and is yet to be invited to speak to Congress. It will be instructive to observe how he is received by the cognoscenti. Will our intellectuals be respectful yet condescending or will they welcome him as a hopeful democrat? Will our government risk tweaking Putin and give Yushchenko a proper welcome?
Ukrayinska Pravda runs a translation of an article calling on Yushchenko to bring up the case of Tara Protsyuk, a Ukrainain journalist killed in the April 2003 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The hotel was housing foreign journalists covering the war.
Zerkalo Nedeli doesn't seem to think that the new President is changing government fast enough or well enough:
One would never imagine that during the first months of his presidency, Viktor Yushchenko would look like a precise replica of his predecessor Leonid Kuchma. However, he shows a similar lack of knowledge and understanding of the law. As a result, he is reluctant to honor it, and is unable to guarantee its observance to fulfill his constitutional duty.
[...]It is not known who advises the President. According to one source, one of Viktor Yushchenko’s chief advisors on legal issues is Viacheslav Oleshchenko, first deputy head of the Chief State Legal Department in President Kuchma’s office. As far as we know, Oleshcehnko remained in his post in the post-revolutionary President’s office. Former oppositional jurists describe Oleshchenko, a graduate of the geography department of Kyiv State University, as an apologist for a fundamentally new science - Kuchma’s law, where expediency was a major driving force.
Be that as it may, it is a fact that the President makes obvious legal mistakes, and his solicitors not only fail to help him correct them, but also persuade him not to. The story of the appointment of governors is a typical example. The President signed decrees appointing new heads of the regional state administrations in the Verkhovna Radar session hall on the day when the new Cabinet was approved, referring to the recommendations of the newly appointed Prime Minister. Shortly after this, he was reproached for violating the Constitution, which obliges the President to appoint governors on a motion by the Cabinet, but not of the Prime Minister. Later on, it was unofficially released that the head of state supposedly admitted his mistake and was going to abolish the illegitimate decrees and sign new ones, prepared in full compliance with the required procedure. Some time later, it appeared that the head of state changed his mind. Supposedly, he was assured that he had done everything correctly. We do not know who the ad visor was, but assume that this person belongs to the Ministry of Justice.
And finally, as I was wandering around the Internet this morning I saw what at first looked like an alarming development. The headline of the item read:
Castro Opens Franchises in Thailand, Latvia and Ukraine.
What's this? Fidel is looking to replicate his enormous success? Are we on the brink of McCommie? Uh, no:
Castro (TASE: CAST) is entering new markets through franchises in Thailand, Latvia, and Ukraine. Castro has signed franchise agreements with retail chains JRA Fashions Co. in Thailand, Argo in Ukraine, and Marco in Latvia.
Under Castro's overseas expansion plan, and following the three franchise agreements, 12 Castro and Castro Men pairs of stores will be opened in Thailand, Latvia, and Ukraine over the next five years. 24 stores will be opened altogether.
Castro CEO Gabi Roter said that as part of the company's strategy, Castro had set up a delivery company in the Far East in 2004, and built a logistics center that would support future growth in international markets.
Whew.
The links for the missiles show cruise missiles and not ballistic missiles - ballistic missiles are long range, climb up into the atmosphere, and are hard to defend against. Cruise missiles are not as fast as jet fighters and are slow enough to be shot down by small arms.
What has been smuggled - ballistic missiles or simple cruise missiles
Posted by: blackminorcapullets | March 20, 2005 at 02:25 PM
Haha! A.M. Mora y Leon should have a field day with that Castro insert!
Posted by: Robert Mayer | March 20, 2005 at 02:26 PM
Sorry, I should have made that point clearer on the X-55. These are cruise missiles. The Shahab is a ballistic missile, which leads Mr Richardson to conclude that the X-55 would not necessarily be used as a nuclear weapon. Hope this answers your question.
Posted by: Daniel | March 20, 2005 at 04:03 PM