Russia Is Behind North Korea’s Missile Success: Report
Well, thankfully we have a president who knows how to be tough on Russia.
North Korea’s rapid missile-program improvements can be traced to Russia, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The report notes that North Korea’s missile program has been connected to a black-market factory that once produced the some of the most advanced weapons for the Soviet Union.
The New York Times report was based on classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies.
It has long been believed that North Korea’s rapid success in missile technology and nuclear weapons would not be possible without outside help, this new report confirms it.
It is not believed that North Korea could have made such big leaps forward in their nuclear-weapons program without outside help.
Michael Elleman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told The New York Times “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.”
Here is a key portion of the New York Times report:
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.
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.
Read the full New York Times report here.
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