Utopia Talk / Politics / Source Of North Korean Missile Engines

swordtail Anarchist Prime	Mon Aug 14 09:11:53 NYT Shocking Report: US "Ally" Ukraine Is Source Of North Korean Missile Engines by Tyler Durden Aug 14, 2017 8:26 AM When the US State Department supported Ukraine domestic forces and nationalist elements to stage a successful and deadly coup against then pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, the outcome was supposed to be a nation that is a undisputed US ally and persistent threat, distraction and non-NATO opponent to bordering Russia. Instead, it now appears that it has been Ukraine which was, as the NYT writes, the secret behind the success of North Korea's ballistic missile program. Specifically, in a blockbuster report this morning, the NYT alleges that North Korea has been making black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines from a Ukrainian factory citing "expert analysis being published Monday and classified assessments by American intelligence agencies." The studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches. After those failures, the North changed designs and suppliers in the past two years, according to a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. According to the report, analysts who studied photographs of 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." Since the alleged engines have been 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. However, after the 2014 coup which ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, 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." In other words, it is America's latest Eastern European "ally" that is behind what is rapidly emerging as a potential nuclear threat that can blanket as much as half of the continental US. “It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly,” Elleman told the NYT in an interview. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.” Bolstering his conclusion, he added, was a finding by United Nations investigators that North Korea tried six years ago to steal missile secrets from the Ukrainian complex. Two North Koreans were caught, and a U.N. report said the information they tried to steal was focused on advanced “missile systems, liquid-propellant engines, spacecraft and missile fuel supply systems.” Investigators now believe that, amid the chaos of post-revolutionary Ukraine, Pyongyang tried again. Considering Ukraine is a close US ally - just ask John McCain - maybe a phone call to current Ukraine president, oligarch billionaire Poroshenko, should suffice? To be sure, the factory itself would never admit this stunning allegation: 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.” Making matters worse of the US "allies" in 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. The obvious implication here is that - if accurate - Ukraine had been working with North Korea for years, well into the administration of Barack Obama, the same president under whom the Ukraine coup was greenlight, which would also suggest that the current North Korean crisis is explicitly a consequence of Obama's foreign policies. Which is why we read the following amusing disclaime in the NYT: "How the Russian-designed engines, called the RD-250, got to North Korea is still a mystery." Furthermore, Elleman told the NYT that the fact that the powerful engines did get to North Korea, despite a raft of United Nations sanctions, suggests a broad intelligence failure involving the many nations that monitor Pyongyang. Failure or perhaps just US intel closing its eyes to what Ukraine may be doing through the back door. The NYT writes that "it is unclear who is responsible for selling the rockets and the design knowledge, and intelligence officials have differing theories about the details. But Mr. Elleman makes a strong circumstantial case that would implicate the deteriorating factory complex and its underemployed engineers. “I feel for those guys,” said Mr. Elleman, who visited the factory repeatedly a decade ago while working on federal projects to curb weapon threats. “They don’t want to do bad things.” One can only imagine what Elleman would "feel for those guys" if the factory turned out to be Russian, or Chinese. Describing North Korea's long history of smuggling rocket technology over the decades - mostly from the former USSR - the NYT writes that eventually, the North turned to an alternative font of engine secrets — the Yuzhmash plant in Ukraine, as well as its design bureau, Yuzhnoye. The team’s engines were potentially easier to copy because they were designed not for cramped submarines but roomier land-based missiles. That simplified the engineering. Economically, the plant and design bureau faced new headwinds after Russia in early 2014 invaded and annexed Crimea, a part of Ukraine. Relations between the two nations turned icy, and Moscow withdrew plans to have Yuzhmash make new versions of the SS-18 missile. In July 2014, a report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned that such economic upset could put Ukrainian missile and atomic experts “out of work and could expose their crucial know-how to rogue regimes and proliferators.” It was right: The first clues that a Ukrainian engine had fallen into North Korean hands came in September when Mr. Kim supervised a ground test of a new rocket engine that analysts called the biggest and most powerful to date. Norbert Brügge, a German analyst, reported that photos of the engine firing revealed strong similarities between it and the RD-250, a Yuzhmash model. Alarms rang louder after a second ground firing of the North’s new engine, in March, and its powering of the flight in May of a new intermediate-range missile, the Hwasong-12. It broke the North’s record for missile distance. Its high trajectory, if leveled out, translated into about 2,800 miles, or far enough to fly beyond the American military base at Guam. On June 1, Mr. Elleman struck an apprehensive note. He argued that the potent engine clearly hailed from “a different manufacturer than all the other engines that we’ve seen.” Mr. Elleman said the North’s diversification into a new line of missile engines was important because it undermined the West’s assumptions about the nation’s missile prowess: “We could be in for surprises.” That is exactly what happened. The first of the North’s two tests in July of a new missile, the Hwasong-14, went a distance sufficient to threaten Alaska, surprising the intelligence community. The second went far enough to reach the West Coast, and perhaps Denver or Chicago. If the NYT report is accurate, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the logic behind ongoing US support of Ukraine: as a reminder, two weeks ago the WSJ reported that Pentagon and State Department officials have devised plans to hit Russia where it hurts the most, and supply Ukraine with antitank missiles and other weaponry, and are now seeking White House approval at a time when ties between Moscow and Washington are as bad as during any point under the Obama administration. In light of the news that Ukraine may be responsible for weaponizing the biggest nuclear threat to the US, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to "delay" or maybe even this deadly support for Ukraine, even if it means an outpouring of fury from neo-cons like John McCain. http://www...e-north-korean-missile-engines
Daemon Member	Mon Aug 14 09:19:59 "on the edge of the territory where Russia is fighting a low-level war to break off part of Ukraine." Wow he was allowed to write this?
Seb Member	Mon Aug 14 09:25:16 So basically Putin's little war is responsible? Edge of Russian sphere in Ukraine. Bet that's the smuggling route out.
Sam Adams Member	Mon Aug 14 11:27:21 A kremlin propaganda site is blaming the ukraine? What a shocking and surely accurate claim that must be...
TJ Member	Mon Aug 14 11:31:18 A rooster in the hen house.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 12:34:43 Sam, I bet you are thinking the same as I. The Ruskies are trying to drive a wedge between the Ukraine and the West.Especially the US.
Paramount Member	Mon Aug 14 13:40:55 The wedge was already driven by the USA.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 13:42:54 paramounted, please go soak your head in a pile of shit. It might make you smart.
Paramount Member	Mon Aug 14 13:45:12 "You're all so much more angry and less willing to just stop and think for a second." ~ Chuck
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 13:49:37 OK, how did The United States drive a wedge? Was it when Obama sent them some food and blankets? That's the only aide I remember that we sent to the Ukraine.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 13:50:01 *-aid
Paramount Member	Mon Aug 14 13:52:32 Use your brain, Himmler Rod. The US instigated a coup in Ukraine.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 13:55:49 Did they? When.
Paramount Member	Mon Aug 14 14:03:41 In 2014 when Yanukovych was overthrown. I know you know this but you are only trying to act like you don't know anything.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 14:05:51 I did not know that we were involved. Are you sure or are you just taking the leftists news for it?
Paramount Member	Mon Aug 14 14:07:56 I'm sure.
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 14:11:52 If you say so.
werewolf dictator Member	Mon Aug 14 17:01:57 more blowback from obama's decision to back antidemocratic coup led by nazis if obama wasn't trying to destroy usa then i don't know what more he could have done if he had
Hot Rod Revved Up	Mon Aug 14 18:10:15 Me either.
werewolf dictator Member	Mon Aug 14 22:20:34 "Edge of Russian sphere in Ukraine. Bet that's the smuggling route out." dumb.. dnipro = formerly dnipropetrovsk http://www...-russian-ukraine-front-as.html
Seb Member	Tue Aug 15 12:27:49 Wait, so it's in rebel controlled area? Then it's fucking Russian responsibility not "America's ally" as this article suggests.
Seb Member	Tue Aug 15 12:28:59 Or are you sayig that because it's not in rebel controlled area, that it is inconceivable that's the smuggling route out? If so, har har har.
Pillz Member	Tue Aug 15 12:36:41 Yes Seb, it is Russia's responsibility to make sure that US ally Ukraine doesn't ship missiles to US enemy North Korea. Rofl
Seb Member	Tue Aug 15 15:42:46 I misunderstood Werewolf's post. The initial understanding was that Dnipro was on the Ukraine held side. The way he phrased his response implied that he was criticising me for thinking that, so I assumed I had it wrong and it was in the Rebel held area. Then I went and googled where the fuck it was in relation to the border, and discovered werewolf was just gibbering. I would definitely expect the engines are being smuggled out via the uncontrolled border areas; if they are at all - given that there's not a huge amount of evidence that the Norks are using Ukrainian built engines at all.
Pillz Member	Tue Aug 15 17:56:45 And again, how is that Russia's problem?
zavyx Member	Tue Aug 15 20:45:59 this truly does come as quite a shock, I thought the only thing the Ukrainians were good at was producing child pornography.
werewolf dictator Member	Tue Aug 15 22:03:58 yes i'm sure they carried it quarter way across ukraine and then straight through teeth of heavily armed ukrainian front lines just so they could get it to russian held territory where they have to smuggle it some more dumb
Seb Member	Wed Aug 16 02:31:19 Pillz: Er, because in the post you were referencing I was under the impression - given werewolfs reply - that I'd got it wrong and that Dnipro was in rebel territory which is effectively under Russian military control. Silly me, should have assumed werewolf was babbling and googled first. Note, Russia is opposing Ukraine from controlling the borders of the rebel held region.
Seb Member	Wed Aug 16 02:33:41 Werewolf: I'm not convinced it happened at all after reading up some more on the nork engine tech. But actually yes, there's loads of evidence of smuggling across the border. It's not like the entire thing is trenches. Bribing local officers and then using ports that are outside of effective control of a nation state - pretty easy. And Russia would look Kindly on norks nukes - anything that spreads America thinner.
jergul large member	Thu Aug 17 01:20:46 Blueprints (particularly on tooling)and production line information. Not finished products. NK would not want a supply of physical engines if you gift wrapped them (with the exception perhaps of a demo to reverse engineer). Seb Let go of the hatred, bro.
werewolf dictator Member	Thu Aug 17 02:08:36 if seb was smuggler he would haul from state owned factory in dnipro quarter way across country and then past most guarded section of country by ukrainian forces and thence into rebel controlled areas and then smuggle it some more.. because that dumb smuggling route would validate some of his prejudices against russia during final smuggling parts
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