U.S. and British arms experts begin study of Kolchuha case (10/20/02)

U.S. and British arms experts begin study of Kolchuha case

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A delegation of 13 arms experts from the United States and Britain arrived in Ukraine on October 14 on a fact-finding mission to determine whether illegal arms sales took place between Kyiv and Baghdad.

Under a veil of secrecy, they spent six days moving to various sites throughout the country to gather documents, and interview officials and experts. Perhaps most importantly, they got a first-hand look at the Kolchuha anti-aircraft radar system, which the U.S. has accused Ukraine of transferring to Iraq, to determine its performance characteristics and capabilities.

The group made no public statements during its stay, which was to conclude on October 19, and both the Ukrainian government and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv refused to identify either the group's agenda or its itinerary.

A photo opportunity prior to a meeting of a subgroup of the delegation with Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, scheduled for October 16, was canceled after the delegation arrived in Kyiv. Journalists who waited for comments on the meeting at its conclusion were frustrated when the group left the Parliament Building through a back door.

Ukrainian government officials acknowledged that the delegation, which consists of representatives of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Defense and the British Defense Ministry, traveled in smaller groups to the Topaz Factory in Donetsk where the Kolchuha is manufactured, and to a Kolchuha radar site - one of seven in the country - which the Ukrainian press identified as a military installation in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. A third group stayed in Kyiv to meet with political leaders and experts. Little is known about where else they may have traveled.

Serhii Borodenkov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the delegation gathered manufacturing, finance and sales documents, including the serial numbers and parts numbers of those defense systems that have been produced, for later analysis. He stressed that the experts were in the country at Ukraine's invitation.

"This group of experts is neither an international delegation nor a U.N. delegation, they are experts from the U.S. and Great Britain who have come here because Ukraine has asked them to come," explained Mr. Borodenkov.

The arms experts initially met with a 14-member ad hoc state commission appointed by President Leonid Kuchma and headed by his chief of staff, Viktor Medvedchuk. Mr. Medvedchuk underscored the "unprecedented openness" of Ukrainian state officials in allowing foreign arms experts access to state military and technology secrets, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

Immediately after Washington announced on September 24 that it would suspend $54 million in foreign aid to Ukraine's central government because it believed the Ukrainian state leadership was complicit in illegal arms sales to Baghdad in violation of a United Nations sanctions regime, Kyiv declared its innocence and its willingness for full and transparent cooperation. Since then it has staunchly maintained its non-complicity at all levels - including the personal involvement of President Kuchma - and has held meetings with U.S. and U.N. officials at various levels.

Kyiv has repeatedly said that Washington had no basis to accuse Ukraine of illegal arms sales. It has staunchly disputed the veracity of an alleged conversation between President Kuchma and Ukraine's chief arms control export official, Valerii Malev, in which a person is heard giving the okay for the sale of a Kolchuha to Baghdad through a Jordanian middleman. Mr. Malev died in a car collision in the spring of this year.

The recordings are part of a series made by Maj. Mykola Melnychenko, a former security officer for President Kuchma who received political asylum in the U.S. not long after they became public.

The United States has maintained that the digital recordings are authentic, proven by an independent analysis of the originals. That determination, combined with "some indication" that a Kolchuha system is operating in Iraq, is a sufficient basis for making the allegations and proceeding with an investigation. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual has underscored that the suspension of aid should be only temporary until the situation is assessed and relations between Kyiv and Washington reviewed.

The Kolchuha is of particular concern to both Washington and London because it is one of very few anti-aircraft detection systems that offer a real threat to U.S. and British pilots maintaining a no-fly zone over Iraq. American and British fighter jets do not have the ability to pick up the signal it emits to warn pilots they are in danger. There are rumors, as well, that the Kolchuha can detect stealth technology.

A leader of Ukraine's opposition movement, Yulia Tymoshenko, announced on September 11, three days before the delegation of arms experts arrived in Kyiv, that Belarus had cooperated with Ukraine to provide a temporary replacement Kolchuha for the one sold by Ukraine, and that is the only reason the arms experts would find all seven Ukrainian systems in their proper locations.

Ms. Tymoshenko said she had received information from contacts within Customs and several military units that a Belarusian Kolchuha had been moved into Ukraine via three railway cars. Ms. Tymoshenko has long been a vehement critic of President Kuchma and leads the opposition calling for his resignation or impeachment on charges of widespread corruption

Ukraine's Ministry of Defense immediately disavowed the claim. In a statement sent to Interfax-Ukraine the same day it asserted: "True, three Kolchuha complexes have been kept in long-term storage in Chernihiv military unit A-2022 since 1992. No other complexes of this type were ever received, including from Belarus."

Among those coming to the defense of Ukraine and its embattled president, was Russia's Vladimir Putin. On October 7, during a plenary meeting of the Council of Presidents of the Commonwealth of Independent States, President Putin proposed the candidacy of President Kuchma for the post of chairman of the council. Ironically, Ukraine is only an associate member of the CIS and takes part in a limited number of its activities.

Various Ukrainian experts explained the action by Mr. Putin as a move to prop up the Kuchma administration and express trust in the Ukrainian president, while warning the United States to be careful in how it decides to resolve the Kolchuha dispute.

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