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Ukraine Blames International Ring for Missile Sales
A group of Russian, Ukrainian and Australian nationals were behind the smuggling of 12 X-55 nuclear-capable cruise missiles from Ukraine to China and Iran, a Ukrainian official said yesterday (see GSN, March 23). Ukraine’s Security Service discovered the ring last year and halted its work in the former Soviet republic, according to Dmytro Svystkov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Investigators learned that in early 2000 a Russian and a Ukrainian national used forged documents to sell six X-55 missiles to China. The Ukrainian citizen then received a false document certifying the missiles’ transfer to Russia, according to the UNIAN news agency. In May and June 2001, the Ukrainian national and an Australian citizen smuggled six X-55 missiles to Iran using a similar process. Though designed to deliver nuclear weapons, the transferred missiles were unarmed and could only be deployed from Russian Tu-95 or Tu-160 strategic bombers, Svystkov said. The case against one member of the ring over the arms sale to Iran is now before the Kiev Region court of appeals, according to UNIAN. The Russian national was detained in the Czech Republic in July 2004 on and is being extradited to the Ukraine, UNIAN reported. Two other individuals connected to the case were killed in traffic accidents in 2002 and 2004, Svystkov said (UNIAN/BBC Monitoring, March 30).
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