Ukraine arms dealers sold cruise missiles to Iran and China

BBC:

Ukrainian arms dealers smuggled 18 nuclear-capable cruise missiles to Iran and China in 1999-2001, Ukraine's prosecutor-general has said.

The Kh-55 missiles - also known as X-55s - have a range of 3,000km (1,860 miles), the UK's Financial Times newspaper reports.

Official Ukrainian state bodies were not involved in the sales, the prosecutor-general's office said.

It added that the missiles were not exported with nuclear warheads.

...

The smuggling happened while Leonid Kuchma was president of Ukraine. His administration was voted out of office in December.

The Financial Times reports that the missiles could reach Japan if fired from mainland Asia or Israel if fired from Iran.

Ukraine had about 1,000 of the missiles after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, which were earmarked either to be transferred to Russia or to be scrapped, the paper says.

The Kh-55, known in the West as the AS-15, is designed to carry a nuclear warhead with a 200-kiloton yield.

Wny would Iran need such a missile? It looks like it might be a good delivery vehicle for the nuclear bomb it claims it is not building.

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