Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov arrives for a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, December 12, 2016. Picture taken December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine denied on Monday that it had ever supplied defense technology to North Korea, responding to an article in the New York Times that said North Korea may have purchased rocket engines from Ukrainian factory Yuzhmash.

Concern that North Korea is close to achieving its goal of putting the mainland United States within range of a nuclear weapon has raised global tensions in recent weeks. The United States is a key backer of Ukraine.

The secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defence Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, said Ukraine “has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to North Korea.”

State-owned Yuzhmash said it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“In the years of independence, Yuzhmash has not produced, and is not producing, missiles and military missile systems,” it said in a statement published on their company’s website.

President Donald Trump warned at the weekend that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” if North Korea acted unwisely after threatening last week to land missiles near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

North Korean officials in turn have accused the U.S. leader of driving the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war.

On Sunday, the head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said he would not be surprised if North Korea tested another missile, after it conducted two tests in July.</s>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.</s>North Korea has achieved great advancements in its missile capabilities over the past two years, fueled in part by what appear to be Soviet-style engines acquired from illicit networks in Russia and Ukraine, according to a report published Monday.

After a number of failed intermediate-range missile launches in 2016, North Korea has made mysteriously large steps in its development of missiles.

New evidence appears to show the country illicitly obtained technology for its Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-12 rockets from the European black market, writes Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

According to Ellerman, North Korea likely acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine “through illicit channels operating in Russia and/or Ukraine.”

In an interview with The New York Times, Ellerman said he thinks North Korea likely obtained the engines illegally from workers at Yuzhmash, a state-owned Ukrainian aerospace company.

Ellerman said executives at Yuzhmash likely were not involved in the deal, but he thinks workers at the plant likely supplied the engine to the North Koreans.

“It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly,” Elleman told the Times. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.”

Ukraine’s government flat-out denied the report that the rocket engine came from one of its state-owned factories and said Russian intelligence officials may be behind the allegations.

"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,” according to Oleksandr Turchynov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

Ukraine’s space agency said the RD-250 engine type reportedly used in North Korea was made in a Ukrainian factory, but only for use in rockets supplied to Russia.

Acting space agency chief Yuriy Radchenko told journalists the engines were produced at the Ukrainian plant until 2001 and a total of 233 were made.

He said, according to Ukrainian information, Russia has between 7 and 20 of the Cyclone rockets for which the engines were produced, and the Russians are free to “supply these engines from the finished rockets to whoever they want."</s>Ukraine’s government has denied a report that one of its state-owned factories may have supplied the rocket engines North Korea is using in its quest to create a missile capable of hitting the continental United States.

The successful test launches North Korea has carried out in recent months that have prompted fiery rhetoric from President Donald Trump have also surprised experts. The country has been making rapid progress in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Now, a new analysis by an American missile expert, first reported by The New York Times on Monday, says it has identified the engines that are powering these recent missile tests as a type produced by a factory in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told The New York Times he believed that the engines had likely been acquired illegally from workers from Yuzhmash, a Ukrainian factory that has been suffering severe financial difficulties recently. Elleman said he did not believe Yuzhmash's executives or the Ukrainian government were involved in the deal, but that Ukraine was the most likely source of engines. Elleman told the Times he feared that Yuzhmash technicians might be aiding the North Koreans.

“It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine —- probably illicitly,” Elleman told the Times. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.”

The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleg Turchynov, flatly rejected Elleman's report in a statement. Turchynov said the claims were unfounded and suggested Russian intelligence officials were behind the allegations.

"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,” Turchynov said. “Ukraine has always adhered to all its international commitments, therefore, Ukrainian defense and aerospace complex did not supply weapons and military technology to North Korea.”

A spokesperson for the factory, Yuzhmash, also denied the report, telling ABC News it was "false information."

Elleman’s analysis, published in full on the International Institute for Strategic Studies' website, sought to answer a question that has puzzled experts. Many analysts have wondered how North Korea could have so rapidly produced an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, given that even a year ago its efforts had appeared mired in technical failures.

On May 14, North Korea test launched a new intermediate missile capable of striking Guam. Two months later, on July 4, it launched a more powerful missile that the U.S. military estimates reached an altitude of more than 1,700 miles, making it officially an intercontinental ballistic missile. That launch was met with strong international condemnation and provoked an intense war of words between Trump and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un.

The successful launches abruptly ended a long string of failures during which North Korean rockets often blew up shortly after ignition. North Korea's efforts to build an ICBM seemed to stall until September last year, after which the country moved swiftly from a ground-launch test through to a full successful ICBM launch. Such progress through design stages normally take years, experts have said.

In his analysis, Elleman suggested that North Korea’s rapid progress was due to the fact that it had imported a new foreign-made engine, adapted with foreign expertise. Based on analyzing video of the launches, Elleman said he had narrowed down the recent missiles’ engine type. Elleman said it appeared to be a modified version of a Russian-designed liquid fuel engine, called an RD-250, that was originally mass produced for use in the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal.

During the Soviet Union and up until 2006, Elleman wrote, the engines were produced by Yuzhmash in conjunction with a Russian company, Energomash. But in recent years, Yuzhmash has suffered severe financial problems, recently exacerbated by the economic crisis in Ukraine following the 2014 revolution there and the country's conflict with Russia.

Elleman noted that hundreds of the rocket engines may be stored in Russia in Energomash warehouses as well, but suggested that Yuzhmash’s financial troubles mean that it was the prime suspect as the supplier to North Korea. He wrote he believed criminal networks operating in Ukraine may have collaborated with workers from the plant to acquire some of the spare engines.

Yuzhmash rejected that information in a statement on its website, writing that the claims in The New York Times article "do not correspond to reality" and are “based on an incompetent 'expert' opinion.”

The company said that it had not produced any military-use missile technology since Ukraine’s independence in 1991 and that it complied with an international treaty intended to prevent the spread of ballistic missile technology for armed purposes.

Reached by phone later on Monday, Elleman reiterated that he did not believe either the Ukrainian government or Yuzhmash executives had been involved in supplying the engines but stood by his claim that Ukraine remained the most likely source.

“I think it’s more likely it came from Ukraine, but I can’t be certain,” he said. "We don't have proof that it came from Yuzhmash or any other specific firm."

Elleman added that both Yuzhmash and Energomash were the most likely sources. It would not be the first time North Korea has sought Ukrainian rocket technology. In 2012, Ukraine jailed two North Koreans on espionage charges for attempting to acquire classified technology relating to rocket engines from a Yuzhmash researcher, Yonhap News Agency reported at the time.

Elleman said one of his primary reasons for looking to Yuzhmash was the nature of the modification made by the North Koreans, condensing the engine to a single chamber instead of the usual two. Elleman said two sources had seen an engine with such a modification on display at Dnipro National University, which is closely connected with Yuzhmash.

“It doesn’t mean that Yuzhnoi actually did it,” Elleman said using part of the company's name. But, he said, "that's what leads me to think it's the most likely source."

Yuri A. Mitikov, head of the university's engine design department who has worked with Yuzhmash, told ABC News that it was impossible that the factory had supplied the engine.

“Yuzhmash is a forgotten factory,” Mitikov said of the company's rocket engineering section. “It simply isn’t working.”

Mitikov said that for the past five years, the rocket construction department has only been working one day a week and that most of the rocket engines had been stored in Russia.

He argued U.S. arms control specialists had helped dismantled much of the factories' equipment used for military-use missile construction when Ukraine handed over its nuclear arsenal after 1991.

As for the modified RD-250 engine at the university, Mitikov said there was indeed one in a department lab, but that it was a mock-up for students.

“There’s nothing inside,” he said.

Yuzhmash is currently contracted to produce 12 ‘Zenit’-class rockets for the Russian-owned commercial space company, S7 Sea Launch, according to a statement in June announcing the project.

But otherwise, Yuzhmash largely produces trolleybuses and tractors now.

Elleman said the key point he had been trying to make was that North Korea had not produced the engine that it was using and that it must have been smuggled into the country from Russia or Ukraine.

He praised Ukraine's government for its previous work on arms control and said he believed they needed to investigate whether the engine could have come from its territory.

“The Ukrainian government should investigate, and if they exonerate themselves, then great," he said. "But there is definitely a source somewhere.”</s>WASHINGTON — The rapid advance of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile program has prompted questions about whether Kim Jong Un’s regime obtained Soviet-designed rocket engines illicitly from Ukraine or Russia.

The liquid-propellant rocket engines North Korea has been using in recent tests resemble the RD-250 and were probably acquired through illicit channels originating in Ukraine or Russia, where the complex rocket engine was designed, a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Monday.

Michael Elleman, author of the report, said the single combustion-chamber version of the RD-250 rocket engine that resembles what the North Koreans are testing likely traces back to Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye State Design Office or Russia’s Energomash, two state defense companies involved in designing the engine in the past. Both defense contractors played critical roles in the Soviet Union’s ballistic missile program.

“The actual sourcing to me is still an open question,” Elleman, a missile expert, said in an interview. He said it was unlikely that either the Ukrainian or Russian governments had any knowledge about a rocket engine sale to North Korea and posited that Kim’s regime somehow obtained the engines through illicit networks.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

Merck CEO quits Trump advisory council in ‘stance against intolerance and extremism’</s>Ukraine says it has never supplied missile technology to North Korea, reacting after The New York Times quoted experts as saying Pyongyang may have purchased rocket engines from a Ukrainian factory.

"Ukraine has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to North Korea," the secretary of Ukraine's Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, said in an August 14 statement.

In its August 14 article, the Times reported that experts believe a missile factory in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro is "the most likely source of the engines" that powered North Korea's two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

The report notes that state-owned factory, known as Yuzhmash, is not far from territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

It quoted a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, and classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies.

"It's likely that these engines came from Ukraine -- probably illicitly," Elleman told the Times. "The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I'm very worried."

Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and The New York Times</s>Engines were likely obtained illicitly from Ukrainian or Russian factories, missile defense expert says

WASHINGTON—The rapid advance of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile program has prompted questions about whether Kim Jong Un’s regime obtained Soviet-designed rocket engines illicitly from Ukraine or Russia.

The liquid-propellant rocket engines North Korea has been using in recent tests resemble the RD-250 and were probably acquired through illicit channels originating in Ukraine or Russia, where the complex rocket engine was designed, a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Monday.

Michael Elleman, author of the report, said the single combustion-chamber version of the RD-250 rocket engine that resembles what the North Koreans are testing likely traces back to Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye State Design Office or Russia’s Energomash, two state defense companies involved in designing the engine in the past. Both defense contractors played critical roles in the Soviet Union’s ballistic missile program.

“The actual sourcing to me is still an open question,” Mr. Elleman, a missile expert, said in an interview. He said it was unlikely that either the Ukrainian or Russian governments had any knowledge about a rocket engine sale to North Korea and posited that Mr. Kim’s regime somehow obtained the engines through illicit networks.

Whether North Korea has the capacity to produce such rocket engines itself domestically is a matter of debate. Mr. Elleman believes it’s far more likely that Pyongyang somehow smuggled dozens of engines from a place such as Ukraine, where they may have been available in factories or storage facilities, given the complexity of the technology.

“The engine itself could fit into a box that’s one by one by two meters,” Mr. Elleman said. “They put them usually in wooden crates for protection. You could load them onto an aircraft, trains or even trucks.”</s>Claims have surfaced alleging North Korea’s recent successful missile tests were only possible with the black market purchase of powerful rocket engines from a Ukrainian factory. There are increased concerns worldwide that Pyongyang is extremely close to achieving its goal of striking the US mainland using an intercontinental ballistic missile. In the report, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, there are claims that the ICBMs used by North Korea were fitted with a rocket engine of a type that marked a radical departure from those the North Koreans had been experimenting with before, and which strongly resemble a Soviet-era design.

The allegations of any Ukrainian backing for the hermit nation’s nuclear programme were refuted by the secretary of the country’s Security and Defence Council, Oleksandr Turchynov. He said: “Ukraine has never supplied rocket engines or any kind of missile technology to North Korea." The state-owned Yuzhmash factory issued a statement on its website claiming no military-grade ballistic missiles had been produced at the site since independence was declared from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The reports came from expert analysis and American intelligence agencies, with many claiming it would be a likely explanation behind the rapid acceleration of the North’s missile programme. Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.”

Until now, President Trump has singled out only China as the North’s main source of economical and technical support, although his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has recently made reference to both China and Russia as Kim Jong-un’s “principal economic enablers”. The claims and allegations follow a stark warning from the President that the US military was "locked and loaded" should North Korea acted unwisely. His comments came off the back of threats that the North would aim to land missiles near the US Pacific territory of Guam.</s>In the last few months, North Korea's ability to launch a warhead beyond its backyard has improved exponentially. Its rapid development of intercontinental ballistic missile tech has left many confused. Now a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies claims he might have solved the mystery. may have received its new souped up ICBM tech from a factory in the Ukraine, and it probably did so very illegally.

In a new study , researcher Michael Elleman examines recent photos of Kim Jung-un inspecting the suspiciously capable new rocket engines in order to determine their origin. He and his fellow researchers noticed the engines were of a design very similar to one used by the Soviets to launch up to 10 thermonuclear warheads at a time. He also determined, based on footage of the rockets launching, plus reports from North Korea, Japan, South Korea, and the US, exactly what version of the rocket was likely being used.

From there he narrowed down the rocket to a specific manufacturer in Ukraine who, coincidentally, is in dire financial straits. Elleman's evidence, while largely circumstantial, is extremely striking. North Korea made "astounding strides over the past two years" employing technology that was in use by the USSR since the 60s and should have been well out of North Korea's reach.

He hasn't been alone in his investigation, others including more experts and government investigators have been studying the potential origins of North Korea's new tech and settled on a single Ukrainian factory, Yuzhmash. In an interview with the New York Times , which first reported the study, Elleman said "It's likely that these engines came from Ukraine - probably illicitly." Later he adds, "The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now."

That is one of the major question marks in this tale of international intrigue. The missile tech might have been acquired from Yuzhmash via the . It wouldn't be the first time: In the 70s and 80s North Korea acquired its missile tech illegally from the USSR. Then in 2004, the father of the nuclear bomb program in Pakistan, A.Q. Khan, admitted to selling nuclear secrets to North Korea. Khan had, himself, stolen those secrets from labs in the Netherlands in the 70s.

Alternatively, North Korea might have simply stolen the tech from Yuzhmash (or a similar site). Elleman's report he quickly discounts that theory. "The alternative hypothesis, that Russian/Ukraine engineers were employed in North Korea is less likely, given the absence of any known production facility in North Korea for such engines."

With no factories capable of building the rockets at the heart of North Korea's new missiles, all signs point to the country acquiring actual devices and not just schematics. Missiles are enormous and would have been very obvious when crossing a continent. This calls into question the entire surveillance apparatus around the country, and strongly indicates help from a third party, either a separate nation state-like Russia or China, or an extremely organized criminal organization.

In the report Elleman notes that the Soviet rocket (referred to as an LPE) North Korea appears to have acquired "is no longer employed by operational missiles or launchers." Thus "facilities warehousing the obsolete LPEs are probably loosely guarded. A small team of disgruntled employees or underpaid guards at any one of the storage sites, and with access to the LPEs, could be enticed to steal a few dozen engines by one of the many illicit arms dealers, criminal networks, or transnational smugglers operating in the former Soviet Union."

Whatever the source, everyone can agree that North Korea's latest missile launches were more successful than any iteration before. Though, as noted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , the technology is not quite capable of hitting the continental US. While Elleman agrees with that assessment, he also notes that without intervention, North Korea might be capable of reaching the US mainland with a missile by 2018.

That's why Elleman ends his report urging other nation-states to negotiate an agreement that bans further testing by North Korea and effectively kills its ICBM program. "But" Elleman warns, "the window of opportunity will soon close, so diplomatic action must be taken immediately."

[ IISS via The New York Times ]</s>North Korea probably acquired the rocket engines for the two intercontinental ballistic missiles it tested in July from Ukrainian or Russian sources within the past two years, a study has claimed.

A report published on Monday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies said that the ICBMs used a rocket engine of a type that marked a radical departure from those the North Koreans had been experimenting with before and which strongly resemble a Soviet-era design.

“An unknown number of these engines were probably acquired though illicit channels operating in Russia and/or Ukraine,” the IISS report said.

The two missile launches last month raised tensions with Washington because they showed that Pyongyang had mastered multistage ICBM technology that would ultimately allow it to hit the US mainland.

Experts differ on whether the two missiles tested on 4 and 28 July would have been able to carry a payload as heavy as a nuclear warhead far enough to strike the US west coast. However, there is a growing body of opinion that North Korea has mastered the science of making warheads small enough to put on a missile and constructing a vehicle capable of shielding a warhead through the heat of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Last week Donald Trump warned Pyongyang that the US would respond with “fire and fury” to any further threats, a warning the North Korean regime almost immediately defied by threatening to launch missiles at Guam, a US territory in the Pacific. The US president escalated the rhetoric once more by declaring US military options were “locked and loaded” and that the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, would “truly regret” any attack on Guam or other US or allied territory.

On Monday, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson, the secretaries of defence and state, sought to clarify the US position. In a commentary in the Wall Street Journal that made no reference to Trump’s heated rhetoric, but claimed his administration was following a different policy from its predecessor.

“We are replacing the failed policy of ‘strategic patience’, which expedited the North Korean threat, with a new policy of strategic accountability,” Mattis and Tillerson wrote.

They argued the “new” policy was based on a combination of diplomatic and economic pressure on Pyongyang, coupled with the deployment of missile defence in the region and an overwhelming deterrent to any North Korean attack. They did not make clear how the policy was in any way different from the Obama administration’s approach, which comprised the same elements.



In a visit to Seoul on Monday, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Gen Joseph Dunford, said Washington was relying primarily on economic and diplomatic means of dealing with North Korea.

“The United States military’s priority is to support our government’s efforts to achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula through diplomatic and economic pressure,” Dunford said, according to a South Korean government statement. “We are preparing a military option in case such efforts fail.”

The IISS report by missile expert Michael Elleman said the Soviet-era engine – the RD-250 – that may have been used in the North Korean ICBM would had been modified from twin combustion chamber to single chamber to meet Pyongyang’s military needs and in a way that would have required “experts with a rich history of working with the RD-250.

“Such expertise is available at Russia’s Energomash concern and Ukraine’s KB Yuzhnoye. One has to conclude that the modified engines were made in those factories,” Elleman said.

The Yuzhnoye is the design arm of a larger Ukrainian weapons producer, Yuzhmash. It has experienced rapid contraction since the fall of a pro-Moscow government in Kiev in 2014 and the start of a conflict with Russia over eastern Ukraine.

A previous attempt to steal secrets from Yuzhnoye was described in a UN report on illegal North Korean weapons procurement. In 2011, the Ukrainian authorities arrested two North Korean agents who it said had approached a Yuzhnoye employee to sell them photographs of missile research including engine design. The employee informed the Kiev authorities who set up a sting operation to catch the two spies.



On Monday, the Kiev government denied the technology used in the North Korean missiles had come from the company.

“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”, Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the Ukrainian national security and defence council, said in a statement.



Other US experts have questioned whether the evidence is strong enough to prove the technology used in the North Korean ICBM’s really came from Ukraine.

Xu Tianran, a researcher on North Korea and missiles in Beijing, said it was very likely that the North Korean rocket engines were based on the Soviet designs, but argued the available pictures were too blurry to say for sure it was a RD-250. As for the modification, Xu said: “I would bet it is produced locally.”
The International Institute for Strategic Studies releases a report arguing that North Korea has acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine for its missile program, probably from illicit networks in Russia and Ukraine, likely produced by Yuzhmash facilities. Ukraine denies the allegations.