Ukraine has found itself in the center of a global crisis that started over North Korea

In recent weeks, the world was teetering on the brink of an abyss. A fresh worsening of relations between the US and North Korea had forced the global media to publish forecasts of not just likelihood, but even likely consequences of a nuclear war. After the Caribbean Crisis (or the Cuban Missile Crisis), which in the early 1960s almost led to the Cold War between the USSR and the US going hot, it was perhaps the most dramatic confrontation between nuclear powers in history.

Ukraine looked at the events from outside as an onlooker... until it found itself in the very center of the global crisis. It happened due to an August 14 article in The New York Times stating that North Korea’s success in creating a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US had been made possible by the acquisition of Ukrainian-made missile engines.

The article in the American publication has made quite a stir around the world and forced our politicians, officials, and journalists to respond promptly to the scandal, even during the low political season which we traditionally have in August.

In the first hours after The New York Times’s piece appeared, the State Enterprise Makarov Pivdenmash, which allegedly was the manufacturer or even the supplier of the engines in question, said that it had never had anything to do with North Korean missile programs, be they of space or military nature. Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov has assured the world that the Ukrainian defense industry had not supplied missile engines and missile technology to North Korea.

The State Space Agency and the State Export Control Service of Ukraine have objected to the allegations put forward in the article and spread by The New York Times. Meanwhile, Iryna Friz, who chairs the delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, has published on her Facebook page an entire investigative report which disproves allegations of Ukrainian manufacturers supplying equipment for North Korea’s missile program.

Ukrainian media have also responded promptly. Editor-in-chief of the online publication Pyotr i Mazepa Viktor Trehubov has noticed that the article in the New York publication is a somewhat distorted version of a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS, which has offices in Washington, London, Bahrain, and Singapore), which was released just as the New York newspaper was publishing its piece. The author of the IISS analytical report and the main commentator in the piece published by the American newspaper is the same person, Michael Elleman, an expert for the IISS.

Deputy Minister of Information Policy (MIP) Dmytro Zolotukhin has noticed that the allegations of Ukraine supplying rocket engines to North Korea have been based on the testimony of an expert closely associated with Russia. “Interestingly, the article in this ever-committed-to-the-freedom-of-speech publication is based, for the most part, on the words of one expert on missile technology, who spent 1995-2001 as the head of a missile armaments reduction program in Russia,” the deputy head of the MIP posted on his Facebook page. Artem Sokolenko, who leads a Ukrainian PR agency, conducted an analysis of Elleman’s Facebook page and found his ties with Russia reaching deep into his personal life. (Then the expert’s profile was deleted.)

The possible bias of the leading newsmaker has not been the most important finding to be made after reading the article in the American newspaper. Trehubov emphasizes that, unlike the original source – a study prepared by the IISS, The New York Times report emphasizes precisely the Ukrainian link, while the version of Russia’s participation in North Korea’s missile program, put forward by the same researchers, has been pushed into background. In addition, instead of assuming that some shadow and criminal schemes were employed to trade in the Ukrainian Pivdenmash engines, there are hints of the Ukrainian government’s involvement in the illegal deals: “…when transforming a highly specialized report into a newspaper article, the whole concept has changed. Now the main fault lies with Ukraine, and it suddenly turns out that the scheme may still be in operation. While refraining from directly expressing the opinion that the Ukrainian government should be aware of the deal happening, the article clearly pushes the reader to think so,” noted the editor-in-chief of Pyotr i Mazepa. He summarizes his impressions in the concluding remarks: “While this writer still had residual illusions about Western journalism, this particular analysis has dispelled them totally. The author of The New York Times article William Broad won the Pulitzer Prize twice. That did not prevent him from writing a contribution with clear signs of extreme negligence at best, and a planted article at worst.”

The icing on the cake of this media scandal came from the authoritative American publication Newsweek. It also featured a piece based on the study by the IISS and The New York Times article. However, Newsweek managed to add to the already scandalous message a statement that the production facilities of the Pivdenne Design Bureau “are located in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, which is situated in the part of the country that is trying to secede and join Russia amid a military conflict.”

On August 15, the very next day after the scandalous article appeared in The New York Times, Elleman explained in an interview with Voice of America’s Ukrainian service that he had never claimed that missile engines could have arrived in the DPRK only from Ukraine; he said they could have been supplied from Russia just as well. “If you have read carefully what I wrote, it should have become obvious that I am not sure that the technologies in question have come from Ukraine. It can be Russia,” said the expert.

He also denied the rumors of his pro-Russian attitude. “I have not had any contact with the Russians. I am not a fan of Vladimir Putin. I have great sympathy for Ukraine. I oppose the annexation of Crimea. I do not take part in the propaganda campaign conducted by Russia,” he stressed.

This missile scandal is notable for multiple cases of people denying they said something. In Ukraine, it was Yulia Tymoshenko’s team that needed to engage in such an effort.

On August 14, a statement appeared on the Fatherland party’s leader’s Facebook page in connection with The New York Times article, which read as follows: “If this information is confirmed, then Ukraine may be subjected to sanctions, which means it will lose any help from the civilized world. This would be a catastrophe for our country.” In her opinion, it is “unprofessional and criminal actions” of the current national leaders that would be to blame if it happens.

Tymoshenko’s Facebook statements have become the top news for Russian propaganda resources and given rise to accusations of her using Ukraine’s foreign policy issues in the domestic political struggle, “working for the Kremlin” and “committing treason.” However, Fatherland’s secretariat reported on the following day that the Facebook page of the political force “was compromised and used for a provocation,” and that “no position of our team on The New York Times article has been published on the official website of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland.” The statement also cited the party’s official position regarding “attempts to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community”: “Our government and our state-owned enterprises have had nothing to do with supplying anything to the DPRK in breach of international sanctions, and it especially applies to military items.”

Thus, two major newsmakers of the missile scandal have disavowed their sensational statements. However, “a word spoken is past recalling” in communications, and no denial can ever completely eliminate image damage and other consequences from the appearance of sensational accusations, even if they were later denied.

However, we should not give up and repeat the famous saying “all is lost” either. We have to work.

The Ukrainian perspective, the Ukrainian view, the Ukrainian version of the events should be communicated to all target audiences, they should be popularized and promoted. We have obvious deficiencies in that field at the moment.

“The world media are reporting on the findings of Michael Elleman. Of course, these reports do not and cannot throw direct accusations at the Ukrainian authorities. Still, they feature a line that can seriously harm our interests, I mean a suspicion of us lacking control over the situation. If such suspicions do not get refuted every time with truthful information which is repeated at all levels on a few dozen occasions, then doubt will inevitably turn into an opinion that can affect attitudes and decisions. Doubt will then be taken for a fact in spite of any contrary realities. Relevant Ukrainian agencies need to launch a solid, responsible reaction, constantly relayed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) through all possible means. This is the only fitting response to the storm that is growing around us,” former Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Danylo Lubkivsky posted on Facebook.

However, today we have a problem not only with a “solid, responsible reaction” but also with “constant relaying” of this position “through all possible means.”

With all due respect, websites Pyotr i Mazepa and AIN.UA, which were among the first to try to independently analyze why The New York Times article could not be trusted, are not among most influential media even in Ukraine, much less abroad. Friz’s Facebook page is not a popular mass media either, even though she posted an entire investigative report that refuted the theses put forward in the New York newspaper’s piece. (By the way, the Ukrainian investigative journalism community has been for some reason unwilling to investigate the truthfulness of The New York Times allegations while they are fresh.)

Also, does Ukraine have any domestic mass media whatsoever which are at the same time authoritative among foreign audiences? Our international broadcaster UATV is only getting started. Ukrinform offers information in several languages, but it remains a news agency that targets the expert audience and is not striving for popularity. So much about state-owned media.

With regard to domestic independent and (importantly) pro-Ukrainian media, the Ukraine Today TV channel (part of the 1+1 Media group) should be mentioned first, but it went off air on the first day of this year. The newspaper Den offers a high-quality English-language version, but few state officials are interested in it, and government institutions do not “pamper” this publication with either assistance in popularization or support of distribution abroad.

In fact, a number of domestic news media have English-language news feeds, but these are mainly news agencies or online resources focused on the domestic market, or media, which, to put it mildly, do not aim to promote Ukrainian interests.

However, “all possible means” include not only domestic media broadcasting to foreign audiences. They include, among other things, foreign media, with which our diplomatic missions should theoretically work. But how can they do it, if even on the morning of August 16, which marked the third day since the scandal started with the infamous article in The New York Times, neither the official website of the MFA nor that of the MIP of Ukraine offered any official statements about the allegations made by the American publication?

One can assume that since nobody has officially accused the Ukrainian government, it is betting on quick unofficial responses. Let us see if the chosen tactics works. However, it would be very unfortunate if passivity of Ukrainian government institutions sees another “Kolchuga scandal” unfolding on the basis of The New York Times report. At the beginning of the 2000s, when this country was subjected to pressure over the alleged sale of Ukrainian Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq in breach of the UN sanctions, we had no war with Russia and did not put such high hopes on US assistance precisely in the military sphere, but even then, the whole scandalous story had very unpleasant and painful consequences for Ukraine.