UKRAINE: ENGAGING UKRAINE ON MISSILE DEFENSE

C O N F I D E N T I A L KYIV 000546

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR, VC, AND ISN; NSC FOR DAVID STEPHENS/JUDY
ANSLEY; AND OSD/P ALSO FOR BRIAN GREEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/01/2017
TAGS: MARR PREL PL EZ UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: ENGAGING UKRAINE ON MISSILE DEFENSE
PROPOSALS AND THE RUSSIAN REACTION

REF: STATE 21640

Classified By: Ambassador, Reason 1.4(b,d)


1. (C) Summary: We passed reftel points and Missile Defense
Agency (MDA) Director LTG Obering's powerpoint presentation
to MOD and MFA officials February 26-28. Ambassador's
February 21 conversation with Presidential adviser,
preeminent Ukrainian strategic thinker, and former rocket
scientist Volodymyr Horbulin provided a nuanced perspective
on Ukrainian concerns of how the rollout of the proposed
facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland play in Ukraine,
even among sympathetic voices. Horbulin suggested the debate
would be carried out in both the technical and political
field, but political factors and Russian sensitivities would
be the primary challenges to meet; he personally did not see
how the two proposed installations would increase U.S.
security and looked forward to U.S. explanations. PM
Yanukovych has publicly expressed skepticism about the
installations.


2. (C) Comment: The planned travel of a briefing team is
timely and greatly appreciated by our Ukrainian counterparts.
The audience for LTG Obering's March 13-14 visit to Kyiv
will include Horbulin, Defense Minister Hrytsenko, DFM
Khadohiy, National Security and Defense Council (NSDC)
Secretary Haiduk, deputy Presidential Secretariat Head

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Oleksandr Chaliy, and PM Foreign Policy Adviser Konstantin
Gryshchenko, as well as selected parliamentary deputies and
the press. The Ukrainian NSDC's March 16 executive session,
to be chaired by President Yushchenko with PM Yanukovych and
all key security officials in attendance, is expected to
examine and determine a Ukrainian position on the proposed
missile defense installations. End Summary and Comment.

Interim information provided to MOD and MFA
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3. (C) We delivered reftel points to First Deputy Defense
Minister Leonid Polyakov and Ukrainian Military General Staff
officials COL Sherstyuk, COL Somoylenko and Col Kozhevnykov
February 26, and subsequently to MFA Arms Control Department
Deputy Director Vasily Pokotilo, Counselor Oleksandr
Bondarenko and Attache Marina Strogaya on February 28. Both
Polyakov and Pokotoilo welcomed the news that MDA Director
LTG Obering and an MDA delegation would be visiting Kyiv
March 13-14 to brief Ukrainian government officials further
on U.S. plans to place missile defense facilities in Poland
and Czech Republic. Pokotilo asked in particular that
Obering provide as much information as possible on the
technical specifications of the planned systems. Polyakov
regretted that the visit could not be scheduled earlier and
noted that MoD and Embassy Kyiv would need to shoulder the
public affairs burden of lowering the temperature around the
missile defense issue in the meantime.

Horbulin's sympathetic but skeptical perspective
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4. (C) Current Presidential Adviser Volodymyr Horbulin is
probably Ukraine's best--some have said only--true strategic
thinker. As the powerful Secretary of the National Security
and Defense Council (NSDC) from 1996-99, Horbulin was
considered by many to be the second most powerful person in
Ukraine during President Kuchma's first term. Like Kuchma,
Horbulin long worked at the Yuzhnoe/Pivdenne Missile
Factory/Design Bureau which produced the Soviet Union's
ICBMs; an engineer by training, Horbulin is the proverbial
rocket scientist in addition to being an elder statesman
actively in favor of Ukraine joining NATO. Ambassador
solicited Horbulin's views on the public controversy over the
proposed missile defense installations February 21.


5. (C) Horbulin stated that Ukrainian leaders lacked the
objective information to form a position, gently criticizing
the U.S. failure to consult with friends prior to making
proposals public. He said that he was personally very well
versed in the U.S. national missile defense strategy and
developments after the U.S. withdrew from the ABM treaty. He
noted that such plans initially had not foreseen placing
facilities in central Europe, and European countries had
ignored Russia's efforts to promote a possible European
Missile Defense System under the name "EuroPro." He
personally could see the development of the Iranian nuclear
program, combined with the medium range missiles Iran
possessed, as posing a danger to US forces/installations in

Europe.


6. (C) Drawing on his design experience from Yuzhnoe,
however, Horbulin dismissed claims that Iranian missiles
could pose a threat to the U.S.; there was a 2600 km maximum
range, "enough to bother Ms. Merkel in Berlin, but not Mr.
Chirac in Paris." Even though the "Russians continued to
work with the Iranians all the time," both on the Bushehr
reactor as well as in military matters, Horbulin remained
skeptical that Iranian missiles could reach the U.S. "This
is my key question for U.S. officials: I simply do not see
how these two stations strengthen U.S. security."


7. (C) Horbulin looked forward to precise technical
information on the proposed installations in the Czech
Republic and Poland. In the absence of angles and radar
coverage, Horbulin felt the Russians would have a point that
the radar could have coverage of Russian territory all the
way to Moscow, even though "rational" people understood a
radar station was not an offensive weapon and that ten
missile interceptors meant nothing in the face of the Russian
strategic arsenal. That said, the U.S. briefing delegation
needed to be prepared to explain policy motivations, not just
technical elements.


8. (C) Horbulin emphasized, however, that the main thrust of
the Russian argument was political, not technical, dating
back to presumptions, right or wrong, that Gorbachev had
received assurances during the 4 2 talks over German
reunification that there would not be any strategic
installations placed on the territory of former Warsaw Pact
countries near the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia.
Horbulin felt that the Missile Defense proposal was the
likely proximate trigger to Putin's outburst in Munich,
foreshadowed by his similar comments about the proposed
installations during his three hour press conference in
Moscow prior to Wehrkunde.


9. (C) Horbulin personally dismissed the main public concern
voiced in Ukraine: that the fallout from a potential
interceptor leaving a site in southern Poland to strike an
Iranian missile would land in Ukraine. "This thesis is
absurd to those who understand ballistics and kinetic
energy;" the pieces would likely fall in Poland instead. But
since politics would trump technical arguments, Horbulin
suggested that the Poles and Czechs needed to engage their
neighbors more actively as well as the U.S. in consultations.
(Note: We understand the Polish National Security Office
plans to brief Ukrainian President Yushchenko during his
March 7 visit to Poland.)

PM Yanukovych publicly skeptical
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10. (SBU) PM Yanukovych reacted to media inquiries about the
proposed installations when visiting Chernihiv province
February 22 by saying: "We are certainly in a difficult
situation. We are studying whether it poses a threat or, I
would say, an inconvenience, to us. After we study this
issue, we will take a final decision and determine the
country's position on this issue." In Odesa on March 2, with
regard to the discussions regarding the possible deployment
of U.S. anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech
Republic, the PM said "we have heard the 'compliments'
between Russia and the United States, and and that was a
vivid example of how not to go about doing things. This is
insecure." The PM also told the press in Odesa that Ukraine
wanted to get "as much information as possible" regarding the
deployment, so the MDA team's visit is extremely timely.


11. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev

Taylor