Has Ukraine Lost Track Of Hundreds Of Missiles?
(Source: RFE/RL; issued Mar. 29, 2004)
[With thanks to www.defense-aerospace.com ]

Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said in an interview with the
Kyiv-based newspaper "Den" of 25 March that after assuming his post in June
he ordered an inventory to be taken of Ukrainian military property. Marchuk
said his inventory revealed a 900 billion-hryvnya ($169 billion) gap with
the inspection made six months earlier under his predecessor, Volodymyr
Shkidchenko. "Unfortunately, even such exotic things happen today as [that]
we are looking for several hundred missiles," Marchuk said. "They were
removed from military service, but we cannot find them. They are said to
have been utilized. But where are [the] results of their utilization?"

Former Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk told the "Ukrayinska pravda"
website (http://www2.pravda.com.ua) on 26 March that Marchuk's revelations
are "nonsense." "I will not even comment on such nonsense. We have this
habit of washing our dirty laundry in public," Kuzmuk said.

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