With all the concern about North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons, attention is being focused on other countries which might be supplying critical technology to North Korea for their nuclear weapons program.
Last Monday, the New York Times published an article about a report by Michael Elleman that claimed that N.K. may have gotten advanced rocket engines left over from the Soviet Union missile program from a company in Ukraine. Elleman was the director of a cooperative nuclear missile dismantling project in Chelyabinsk, Russia. He ran the program from 1995 to 2001. He is a respected expert in the field of missile defense and arms control. Ellman is now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In Elleman’s report, he commented that there were similarities between N.K. new missile engines and engines that had been produced by Yuzhmash, a rocket factory in Ukraine. Yuzhmash constructed the Zenit, Dnepr and Cyclone rockets that were used by the Soviet Union to launch satellites. They also constructed the main stage of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket which NASA used to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
The initial reaction of the Ukraine social media was to deny the Ellman report and to attack Ellman. There were some claims that he might be a Russian agent that was deliberately spreading negative news stories to smear Ukraine. The CEO of a Ukrainian communications firm posted some comments on his Facebook page last Wednesday to the effect that Ellman does not like to show pictures of his wife. Along with the comments, the CEO also posted photos of Ellman’s wife in a Russian military uniform. The authenticity of the photo has been questioned. Ellman has deleted his social media accounts and has refused to comment publicly on the matter.
Ukrainian authorities initially agreed with the claim that the Ellman’s report was Russian disinformation. Following this negative reaction which really had nothing to do with the veracity of Ellman’s report, the Ukranie authorities have now started an investigation into the allegations.
On Wednesday, two days after the report and the NYT story were published, Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian President, issued this statement on his Facebook page. “No matter how absurd the accusations, as responsible partners…we shall carefully verify…the alleged supply of missile engines … to North Korea.” Poroshenko has ordered Yuzhmash and state investigators to carry out a thorough investigation into the charges and report their findings. The investigation is expected to be carried out quickly.
Also on Wednesday, the research and development branch of Yuzhmash issued a statement refuting the claims of the Ellman report and the NYT story. The statement said that the report and story were full of technical inaccuracies and represented an “amateur level assessments of technology, and a clear lack of understanding of rocket and missile technology.”
The initial negative reaction by the Ukrainian public and government officials is quite understandable given that the Russians annexed the Crimea from Ukraine a few years ago and they are actively supporting a secessionist movement in Eastern Ukraine.
An expert with the Russian Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies claims that politics played a role in the creation of the original Ellman report. “This excessive searching for ‘foreign assistance’ in the North Korean missile program is purely political in nature,” Barabanov argued, “and is the result of shock, especially in the United States, from North Korea’s recent missile success.” He went on to say that N.K. had been working on missiles for fifty years. On the other hand, he also said, “This story would be completely in the spirit and customs of Ukrainian military-technical cooperation. Ukraine has a bad reputation with regards to the sale of former Soviet military hardware, including high-tech equipment.”
Antares rocket launch:
