Free Republic

Moscow (CNSNews.com) - The newly-appointed government of Ukraine is wasting no time turning its attention to allegations of corruption and dangerous weapons deals under the previous administration. The moves come shortly after Ukraine's parliament unanimously approved Yulia Tymoshenko, a nationalist and frequent critic of Russia, as prime minister to lead the country's new pro-Western government. Recently-elected President Viktor Yushchenko told lawmakers his government would fight corruption though he knew that "that may seem like a fantasy in Ukraine." He said he trusted his "political partner" to organize the government. Voting by lawmakers was delayed by a day due to horse-trading...

An Anglo-American team of experts was invited to visit Ukraine on 13-20 October by President Leonid Kuchma to investigate allegations first made on 23 September by the US administration concerning Ukraine's complicity in busting UN sanctions on Iraq by allegedly supplying the Kolchuga military radar system in mid 2000. JID had already received a copy of the report before it was publicly released after NATO's Prague summit and took the opportunity to investigate further. NATO, the US and the UK deliberately timed the investigation in a phased manner to give the Ukrainian authorities an opportunity to come clean prior to...

KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) - The United States and Britain voiced concerns in public in Ukraine Tuesday that Kiev had sold Baghdad a radar detection system through a third party. Ambassadors to Ukraine from the two countries said they were especially worried about Kiev's military sales to China. China said it had no information about the systems and it had enforced U.N. sanctions against Iraq strictly. In a joint news conference in the Ukrainian capital, the U.S. and British envoys said lingering suspicions that the "Kolchuga" radar detection system found its way into Iraqi hands were bedeviling relations between their countries...

JID has learned that a report by the British-US led international team of experts who visited Ukraine last month to investigate the alleged sale of four Kolchuga radars systems to Iraq in the summer of 2000 will not openly accuse Ukraine of breaching UN sanctions. Instead, the report - to be issued this week - claims it was given 'insufficient evidence' to fully exonerate President Kuchma of breaching UN sanctions. The report concludes that the Ukrainian authorities have failed to persuade the team that Ukraine did not export Kolchuga systems to Iraq. Both the West and Ukraine agree that a...

On 20 September, US President George W Bush unveiled the new US national security strategy. It calls for a first strike against rogue states that possess weapons of mass destruction and strive to "acquire dangerous technologies". Three days later, Washington accused Ukraine of violating UN sanctions against Iraq by selling it four sophisticated Kolchuga radar system units. At the centre of the Iraqi arms scandal stand the hundreds of hours of tapes made illicitly in the office of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma by security guard Mykola Melnychenko. The portion of the tapes dealing with Iraq was only released in March...