Hundreds of Soviet-era Antimissiles Missing

[NetGear]

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Ukraine officials: Hundreds of Soviet-era antimissiles missing

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Several hundred decommissioned Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles are unaccounted for in Ukraine's military arsenal, the defense minister told a newspaper.

Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk, in an interview published in the newspaper Den, appeared to suggest the missiles may have been dismantled without proper accounting, rather than stolen or sold.

"We are looking for several hundred missiles," Marchuk was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition. "They have already been decommissioned, but we cannot find them".

Marchuk didn't specify the types of missile. Defense Ministry spokesman Kostyantyn Khivrenko told The Associated Press that he was referring to S-75 air defense missiles — also known in the West by the code-name SA-2.

Marchuk said the Defense Ministry hadn't observed the accounting requirements established by law until last summer, an apparent jab at his predecessors.

Hundreds of such missiles from Soviet arsenals in Warsaw Pact member countries had been brought to Ukraine for dismantling but were lost due to "accounting problems," Khivrenko said.

He said the absence of records documenting what happened to the missiles was "strange," and added that an investigation was under way.