Posted on 11/25/2004 12:06:01 AM PST by GeronL
Ukraine arms Cuba and Venezuela
Ukraine's arms exports last year stood at US$530-550m, an increase on the year before when they were officially recorded at $440m. JID's regional analyst looks at the implications of Kiev's weapons policy.
Ukrainian experts analysing this highly secretive sector of Ukraine's foreign trade believe that the volume of military exports could rise to an annual maximum of $700m. Of course, these figures do not include the large volume of unofficial trade in weapons. Since 1992, Ukrainian arms have ended up in many conflict zones around the world, including Peru, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
This year's figures for military exports will be heavily boosted by the establishment of two new markets namely Cuba and Venezuela. Sources involved in preparing the contracts have informed JID that the first shipments of military equipment to Cuba and Venezuela are scheduled to take place sometime during September and October.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has recruited officers with Spanish language fluency. These experts have been promised additional increments on their low salaries in return for travelling with the shipments to Cuba and Venezuela. The officers who are set to accompany the shipments will include language experts and interpreters, as well as specialists able to train the Cubans and Venezuelans in the use of the military equipment being supplied. During September and October it is expected that the military equipment will be installed on site in both countries.
The volume of equipment to be sent by the oddly-named Ministry of Machine Building (Ministerstvo mashinostroeniya), which is heavily involved in Ukraine's military exports, will be equally divided between both countries. The bulk of the military equipment being sent to Cuba and Venezuela is light to medium equipment. This includes light infantry weapons coupled with small and medium sized military vehicles. JID has learned that negotiations are underway for Ukraine to supply more sensitive and strategically important military equipment to both Cuba and Venezuela.
Throughout the summer, hundreds of pages of documents to accompany the weapons shipments have been translated into Spanish and English. These documents include operating manuals, an inventory and the contracts. It is understood from sources involved in organising the shipment that the contracts are for the supply and maintenance of the military equipment, in addition to training, for between five to 10 years.
June 17, 2004
Since March, Ukraine's defence minister, Yevhen Marchuk, has been searching for missing missiles and other weapons that could have fallen into terrorist hands or been sold to rogue states. JID investigates why this potentially catastrophic situation is only now being brought to light.
Marchuk raised a domestic storm when he publicly revealed that the Defence Ministry had no unified accounting system. Nor has a comprehensive inventory of military equipment in Ukraine ever been carried out. It is unknown what weapons the Defence Ministry actually possesses or what it inherited from the former Soviet Union.
When Marchuk became defence minister in June 2003 he ordered two inventories that indicated US$170m of military stock was probably missing. These results were so shocking that Marchuk ordered a new team of investigators to conduct an additional check using different methods. They uncovered that additional equipment, worth $20m, was missing.
Ukraine's officially declared revenue from the sale of military equipment is $3bn. This, according to JID's inside sources, only represents a small fraction of the real volume of Ukraine's military exports. Meanwhile, Marchuk has complained that there is no data available to him regarding the quantity of military equipment Ukraine inherited after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The sheer scale of what appears to be missing equipment is astounding, as demonstrated by just one example. In 1990-1991, on the eve of the break up of the Soviet Union, 1,942 S-185 rockets were delivered to the Zhytomir military base, west of Kiev. These rockets were to be dismantled.
In fact, only 488 of the 1,942 rockets can actually be accounted for. The missiles could have been sold to unknown groups or countries. Or their scrap metal, gold, platinum and silver could have been sold separately with the proceeds being transferred to offshore accounts.
"We are looking for several hundred missiles. They have already been decommissioned, but we cannot find them," complained Marchuk.
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid040617_1_n.shtml
Just several ways the Russian Mafia makes a buck and screws the west.
ping
The rest of the world must poo in their pants every time we announce our military budget for the next year.
Good.
Russia, Venezuela sign joint declaration against U.S. supremacy - May 15, 2001 - In addition to calling for an end to the Cuba blockade, Chavez said Venezuela was ready to help Moscow obtain greater influence in the United States' back yard, adding: "We will help Russia's presence in the Caribbean region."
For his part, Chavez seemed to welcome the opportunity to liken his own authoritarian style to that of the Russian leader, with whom he said he expected to become "good friends."
"In the world at large, they characterise us in the same way," he told reporters. "They call us democrats with our own vision of democracy."
"We believe in democracy, but not the kind of democracy forced on us," Chavez said, adding: "A strategic alliance has began, a joint path."
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