Ukraine Denies Nuclear Weapons Were Smuggled to Al-Qaeda

Ukrainian officials yesterday denied a recent Arab newspaper report that Ukrainian scientists had provided al-Qaeda with “suitcase” nuclear weapons in the late 1990s, according to the Moscow Times (see GSN, Feb. 9).

“The allegations of Ukrainian scientists giving away tactical weapons is another tall story,” said Alexander Kuzmyk, a former Ukrainian defense minister and a member of the parliament’s security committee.

Kuzmyk also said that Ukraine had transferred its Cold War-era nuclear weapons back to Russia in 1996, and therefore had no weapons to smuggle in 1998 as the Arab newspaper had alleged (Simon Saradzhyan, Moscow Times, Feb. 10)

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