Ukraine’s Ambassador to Japan Ihor Kharchenko has denied a recent claim that a state-owned plant in his country leaked rocket-engine technology possibly us
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Japan Ihor Kharchenko has denied a recent claim that a state-owned plant in his country leaked rocket-engine technology possibly used by North Korea to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“From 1991, I don’ t think we ever had any type of connections with North Korea. We never had an embassy there. I don’ t know about any type of, any single type of cooperation with North Korea, ” Kharchenko said Friday in an interview.
He was reacting to an Aug. 14 report published by a missile expert at a British think tank who cited evidence that North Korea “has acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine from illicit networks in Russia and Ukraine.”
The new report by Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says there is evidence that the engine is “based on the Soviet RD-250 family of engines, and has been modified to operate as the boosting force” for North Korea’s Hwasong-12 and Hwasong-14 missiles.
