Ukraine said on Friday cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads had been "smuggled" out of the country to Iran, but denied a report they had been exported with official sanction.
The country's new liberal government, which swept to power in January on pledges to stamp out high-level corruption and forge closer ties with the West, said it would tighten controls on the export of technology with military use.
Britain's Financial Times newspaper quoted Ukraine's prosecutor general on Friday as saying Kiev authorities had sold missiles to Iran and China.
The daily quoted Svyatoslav Piskun as saying 18 X-55 cruise missiles, also known as Kh-55s or AS-15s, were exported in 2001, when former President Leonid Kuchma was in power, but none was exported with nuclear warheads.
The X-55 has a range of about 3,000 kilometers (about 1,800 miles). Launched from Iran, it could reach Israel.
Ukrainian security service launches investigation
Piskun's office, however, described the Financial Times account as untrue, drawing a distinction between formal export and what was described as “smuggling.”
"At issue in this interview is not the export of missiles but rather smuggling," a prosecution statement said.
"The SBU (security service) has launched a criminal case against the director of the Ukraviazakaz firm, V. Yevdokimov, in this connection. This case has been examined since August 2004 by the Kiev regional appeal court in closed session."
The affair highlighted the problems faced in imposing control on the Soviet legacy of military high technology, especially in core republics of the former Soviet military-industrial complex such as Ukraine.
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