Russia on December 26 launched a rocket carrying Angola's first telecom satellite from the Baikonur space center with the rare use of a rocket from Ukraine, despite collapsed ties between the two nations, according to RFE/RL.
The United States takes very seriously the reports on the supply of rocket engines from Ukraine to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), according to State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.
Head of the Information Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Volodymyr Horkovenko considers provocation the data in the article of The New York Times about the alleged involvement of the Ukrainian Yuzhmash plant in the successful launch of DPRK missiles.
The reports about the alleged supply of Ukrainian missile technology to North Korea are based on statements provided by an expert affiliated with Russia, Deputy Minister of Information Policy Dmytro Zolotukhin wrote on Facebook.
Ukraine’s state-owned Yuzhmash plant has not had anything to do with the North Korean space or defense missile programs, according to a statement published on a company website in connection with the publication by The New York Times of Aug.14 2017 "North Korea's Missile Success Is Linked to the Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say."
Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov said that the information alleging Ukrainian supplies of rocket engines to North Korea is part of an anti-Ukrainian campaign incited by Russian intelligence.
Draft law No. 5113 on financial readjustment of Ukraine's only producer of carrier rockets and satellites, state-run Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant named after Oleksandr Makarov" (Yuzhmash, or Pivdenmash) passed first reading in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament.