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North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say
A photo released by North Korea’s state news agency in July purported to show a test of a Hwasong-14, thought to be capable of reaching the mainland United States.CreditKorean Central News Agency, via Reuters
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A photo released by North Korea’s state news agency in July purported to show a test of a Hwasong-14, thought to be capable of reaching the mainland United States.CreditCreditKorean Central News Agency, via Reuters
By William J. Broad and David E. Sanger
Aug. 14, 2017
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North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory with historical ties to Russia’s missile program, according to an expert analysis being published Monday and classified assessments by American 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. After those failures, the North changed designs and suppliers in the past two years, according to a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Such a degree of aid to North Korea from afar would be notable because President Trump has singled out only China as the North’s main source of economic and technological support. He has never blamed Ukraine or Russia, though his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, made an oblique reference to both China and Russia as the nation’s “principal economic enablers” after the North’s most recent ICBM launch last month.
Analysts who studied photographs of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, inspecting the new rocket motors concluded that they derive from designs that once powered the Soviet Union’s missile fleet. The engines were so powerful that a single missile could hurl 10 thermonuclear warheads between continents.
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Those engines were linked to only a few former Soviet sites. Government investigators and experts have focused their inquiries on a missile factory in Dnipro, Ukraine, on the edge of the territory where Russia is fighting a low-level war to break off part of Ukraine. During the Cold War, the factory made the deadliest missiles in the Soviet arsenal, including the giant SS-18. It remained one of Russia’s primary producers of missiles even after Ukraine gained independence.
But since Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was removed from power in 2014, the state-owned factory, known as Yuzhmash, has fallen on hard times. The Russians canceled upgrades of their nuclear fleet. The factory is underused, awash in unpaid bills and low morale. Experts believe it is the most likely source of the engines that in July powered the two ICBM tests, which were the first to suggest that North Korea has the range, if not necessarily the accuracy or warhead technology, to threaten American cities.
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“It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly,” Mr. Elleman said in an interview. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.”
Bolstering his conclusion, he added, was a finding by United Nations investigators that North Korea tried six years ago to steal missile secrets from the Ukrainian complex. Two North Koreans were caught, and a U.N. report said the information they tried to steal was focused on advanced “missile systems, liquid-propellant engines, spacecraft and missile fuel supply systems.”
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Investigators now believe that, amid the chaos of post-revolutionary Ukraine, Pyongyang tried again.
Mr. Elleman’s detailed analysis is public confirmation of what intelligence officials have been saying privately for some time: The new missiles are based on a technology so complex that it would have been impossible for the North Koreans to have switched gears so quickly themselves. They apparently fired up the new engine for the first time in September — meaning that it took only 10 months to go from that basic milestone to firing an ICBM, a short time unless they were able to buy designs, hardware and expertise on the black market.
The White House had no comment when asked about the intelligence assessments.
Last month, Yuzhmash denied reports that the factory complex was struggling for survival and selling its technologies abroad, in particular to China. Its website says the company does not, has not and will not participate in “the transfer of potentially dangerous technologies outside Ukraine.”
American investigators do not believe that denial, though they say there is no evidence that the government of President Petro O. Poroshenko, who recently visited the White House, had any knowledge or control over what was happening inside the complex.
On Monday, after this story was published, Oleksandr Turchynov, a top national security official in the government of Mr. Poroshenko, denied any Ukrainian involvement.
“This information is not based on any grounds, provocative by its content, and most likely provoked by Russian secret services to cover their own crimes,” Mr. Turchynov said. He said the Ukrainian government views North Korea as “totalitarian, dangerous and unpredictable, and supports all sanctions against this country.”
How the Russian-designed engines, called the RD-250, got to North Korea is still a mystery.
Mr. Elleman was unable to rule out the possibility that a large Russian missile enterprise, Energomash, which has strong ties to the Ukrainian complex, had a role in the transfer of the RD-250 engine technology to North Korea. He said leftover RD-250 engines might also be stored in Russian warehouses.
But the fact that the powerful engines did get to North Korea, despite a raft of United Nations sanctions, suggests a broad intelligence failure involving the many nations that monitor Pyongyang.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html
NORTH KOREA’S NEW MISSILES CAME FROM UKRAINE AND RUSSIA, REPORT CLAIMS
BY GREG PRICE ON 8/14/17 AT 10:14 AM
 North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency made available on April 26.KCNA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
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The speed at which North Korea has ramped up its missile and nuclear defense programs within the last two years is reportedly due to purchases Kim Jong Un’s regime has made on a weapons black market linked to Ukraine and Russia, as the United States and the globe fret over a potential military conflict.
A new report released Monday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies explains the North has made “astounding strides” in missile development, and it could not have done so without a high-performance liquid-propellant engine, or LPE, provided by a “foreign source.”
“Claims that the LPE is a North Korean product would be more believable if the country’s experts had in the recent past developed and tested a series of smaller, less powerful engines, but there are no reports of such activities,” the report, penned by missile expert Michael Elleman, reads.
Citing available evidence, which can be sparse due to the secretive ways of the North and its isolation from the rest of the world, the report states that North Korea’s ability to jump from short- and medium-range missiles and a flawed type of intermediate-range missile to a more advanced and successful intermediate Hwasong-12 and an intercontinental ballistic missile, called Hwasong-14, could only have occurred with an LPE related to the Soviet RD-250 engines.
Stating that it was “less likely” that Russian engineers could have directly worked on the North’s missiles, the conclusion is drawn that the Soviet Rd-250 missiles and the requisite experience with that class of missile stemmed from factories either from the top Russian rocket engine manufacturer Energomash or the Ukraine’s KB Yuzhnoye.
“One has to conclude that the modified engines were made in those factories,” the report reads.
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The latter company has a factory based in Dnipro, Ukraine, located inside a part of the country attempting to break away and join Russia amid a military conflict, and U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Soviet rockets in North Korea were likely made there, as the state-owned factory has struggled, The New York Times reported.
Also, back in 2011, North Koreans were caught attempting to steal missile secrets from the factory, and the North may have tried to infiltrate the factory another time.
The rocket engines also are believed to be the very ones the North used to test two missiles last month, which has led to more threats from Kim and calls for diplomacy by China—the North’s sole ally—and even threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.
https://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-north-korea-missiles-north-korea-nuclear-north-korea-missiles-650504
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