Ukraine Prosecuting Former Secret Police Officer for Alleged Missile Sales, Lawmaker Says

Ukrainian lawmaker Grigory Omelchenko has said that the country’s SBU secret police agency is prosecuting one of its former officers for allegedly selling 12 nuclear-capable Kh-55 cruise missiles to Iran and China, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 2).

The former officer, identified as V.V. Yevdokimov, is being prosecuted for transferring six missiles each to China and Iran between 1999 and 2001, as well as for attempting to sell an additional 14 last year, Omelchenko said. He has claimed that former Ukrainian officials were also involved in the missile sales and has demanded that the police agency release details on its investigation.

The department would only say that Yevdokimov was arrested last April for allegedly “smuggling military goods outside Ukraine in 2001 and other crimes,” the Times reported (Dinmore/Warner, Financial Times, Feb. 4). 

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