Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies and adviser to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Horbulin believes that in response to the report in The New York Times, Kyiv should initiate a worldwide investigation of North Korea’s missile program.
“In this situation, the Foreign Affairs Ministry should invite the international community, and first of all the United States, to conduct a probe both in Ukraine and, probably, around the world, on how North Korea was able to develop its missile and space program. Whether there is any Chinese trace here or not, or any Russian trace? These two countries have been maintaining close relations with the DPRK? What are the relations between North Korea and Iran?” Horbulin said at a briefing on August 15, the Left Bank online publication reported.
According to him, proposal of such an investigation will stop the constant attacks on Ukraine.
Horbulin stressed that he does not know of any instances of violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime since it was signed in 1997, including sales of engines for air-to-air missiles to Iran, of which Ukraine was also accused once. “And not a single fact has been proven, but we are constantly on the pages of newspapers and on television,” he said.
As reported, the New York Times said on August 14 with reference to conclusions by a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies that the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile launched by the DPRK in July may have been powered by an engine designed on the basis of the RD-250, which was developed for Soviet ICBMs in the 1960s. The report names Pivdenmash (Yuzhmash), which The New York Times describes as “one of Russia’s primary producers of missiles even after Ukraine gained independence,” as the most likely supplier of technology for building the engine for the North Korean missile.
Pivdenmash dismissed the allegations aired by The New York Times and described them as an attempt to discredit Pivdenmash and Ukraine.
