North Korea missile success possibly linked to Ukraine, U.S. experts claim

North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM) that appears able to reach the U.S. was made possible by black
market purchases of rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory, reported
on Aug. 14 the New York Times, citing a study published the same day authored
by Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The
article also cited classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies. “The
studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly
after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by
American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches,” the
New York Times reported. “After those failures, North Korea changed designs and
suppliers in the past two years.”

Experts believe the Pivdenmash aerospace factory in
the city of Dnipro is the most likely source of the engines that in July
powered two ICBM tests, the report said. “It’s likely that these engines came
from Ukraine – probably illicitly,” Elleman said in an interview with the New
York Times. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians
are helping them now. I’m very worried.”

The same day, Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of
the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, issued a statement
denying any government sales of rocket engines or rocket technology to North
Korea. Ukraine has always upheld its international obligations, he said. “This
information doesn’t have any grounds,” he said, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. “It is provocative by
its essence and, more than likely, was provoked by Russian intelligence
services to cover their own crimes.”

Later in the afternoon, Elleman clarified in tweets
that he doesn’t believe the Ukrainian government was responsible, citing the
possible work of Russian and Ukrainian smugglers. He stressed that Pivdenmash
is one of numerous possible sources for the rocket engines, including plants in
Russia.

In its turn, Pivdenmash issued a statement alleging the
facts reported in the New York Times article aren’t true. The article has an
overtly provocative nature and is based on incompetent expert opinion, the
statement said. In a separate comment  to the strana.ua
news site on Aug. 15, Pivdenne Design Bureau (designer of Pivdenmash missiles)
General Engineer Oleksandr Dehtarev said he’s confident no one from the plant
was involved in building the missiles for North Korea. However, he said it’s
possible that copies were made given that the missiles are used throughout the
world.

Zenon Zawada: The
Poroshenko administration could have on its hands a repeat of the Kolchuga
scandal of 2002, when the Ukrainian government was accused by the U.S. of
selling the electronic support systems to the Iraqi government. Secret
recordings of then-president Kuchma also indicated that Grad surface to air
missiles were sold to Iran.

Rather than relieving concerns, Turchynov’s blanket denial
merely exacerbates them as he adopted the standard tactic of the Poroshenko
administration of blame-shifting towards Russia, in this case the origins of
compromising information. A statement in which he vowed to investigate the
matter would have offered more relief and lent more credibility.

Whether this becomes a scandal will depend on
whether the Trump administration decides to follow up on this report and make
accusations of its own. However, given its hawkish stance against Russia, we
expect these findings won’t be significant enough to worsen U.S. relations with
Ukraine.