Space News by Matthew Bodner — August 18, 2017
In the days that followed Monday’s report in The New York Times that North Korea may have illicitly procured advanced Soviet-era rocket engines from Ukraine, the response out of the post-Soviet nation could best be described as trolling.
Not long after the report was published, outraged Ukrainian social media users directed their outrage at the source of the allegations: Michael Elleman, a missile defense expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The New York Times story referenced in detail a report published by Elleman that same day, in which he noted apparent similarities between North Korea’s new missile engines and those once produced by Yuzmash, the Ukrainian rocket factory that builds the Zenit, Dnepr and Cyclone satellite launchers and the main stage of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket.
Rather than challenge Elleman’s argument, Ukrainian social media users quickly made things personal. Freelance investigators scoured his Facebook and Twitter profiles to find evidence that Elleman was a Russian agent peddling propaganda.
“It was extremely interesting to read the Facebook page of someone who, in The New York Times story, was presented as a rocket expert,” Artem Sokolenko, the head of a communications firm in Kiev wrote on Facebook Sunday.
“He does not like to show his wife on his page, but there are some photos,” Sokolonko wrote, sharing photos purportedly of Elleman’s Russian wife, Tatyana, dressed in a Russian military uniform — one that was obviously not her own.
Elleman was the head of a cooperative nuclear missile dismantlement program in Chelyabinsk, Russia, from 1995 to 2001, and is a respected expert in the field of arms control and missile defense.
“The initial Ukrainian response was unhelpful,” Michael Kofman, an expert in Russian military affairs at the Virginia-based CNA think tank told SpaceNews.
“They blamed the expert and then Russian information warfare, which had nothing to do with the matter,” Kofman said. “After categorical denials, only now are they launching an investigation to see if there was any connection.”
On Wednesday, two days after the reports were published, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko finally stepped up with a proactive response.
“No matter how absurd the accusations,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday, “as responsible partners…we shall carefully verify…the alleged supply of missile engines … to North Korea.”
Poroshenko ordered Yuzhmash, the Ukrainian rocket firm in question, along with state investigators, to conduct a thorough investigation into the claims and report back to him. The report is expected imminently.
More:
http://spacenews.com/ukraine-changes-tactics-on-north-korea-engine-claims/
