Ukraine's President Sold Arms to Georgia: Report

Ukraine's President Sold Arms to Georgia: Report (NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW - October 2, 2008: Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko sold arms to Georgia to help it fight the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia and Russia, the Russian daily Izvestia reports in its Oct. 2 edition. "Ukraine supplied weapons to the Georgian armed forces for them to carry out military operations against South Ossetia and Russia ... on the orders of Viktor Yushchenko and to the detriment of the defensive capacity of Ukraine itself," said the report, citing documents it had seen. Over the last two years, Ukraine had sold Georgia seven Buk-M1 air-defense systems, wrote Izvestia. Although the weapons systems were indispensable for the protection of Ukrainian strategic sites, Yushchenko had allowed nearly half of his country's own stocks to be sold off, wrote the paper. "In fact, that meant a weakening of the country's defensive capacity," it added. Ukraine had also sold Georgia 200 Strela and Igla air-defense systems, Soviet-era T-72 assault tanks and Grad rocket-launchers, the paper reported. These rocket-launchers, "chosen with the help of the United States" had been used by the Georgian army on Aug. 8 when it launched its bid to take back control of South Ossetia by force, said Izvestia. In a speech Oct. 1, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a former ally turned political enemy of the president, denounced the arms trafficking that went on in Ukraine. She called for the government rather than the president to take control of arms sales, in a speech cited by the Interfax agency.