Kyiv acknowledges responsibility for jet's downing, Kuchma accepts defense minister's resignation (10/28/01)

Kyiv acknowledges responsibility for jet's downing,
Kuchma accepts defense minister's resignation

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma went on national television on October 24 to officially acknowledge Ukraine's full responsibility for the unintended destruction of a Russian commercial airliner by an errant missile on October 4 and to announce that he had accepted the resignation of the country's top military official.

"I want to again express my deep sympathies to the governments of Israel and the Russian Federation for their citizens who died as a result of this catastrophe," said Mr. Kuchma.

In a five-minute address, the president thanked the two countries "as well as other countries' for their help and their understanding "in these very complicated circumstances."

Mr. Kuchma then announced that he had accepted the resignation of Minister of Defense Oleksander Kuzmuk and several other ranking military officials, and said that he would now move to introduce civilian control over the military.

"The task is to ensure qualitative changes in military reforms and introduce civilian control over the armed forces as soon as possible," explained President Kuchma.

The president also ordered the suspension of all military exercises involving Zenit-class missiles and a detailed review of all air defense weapons. He tasked National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk with heading an interdepartmental task force that would implement the various directives he had issued.

Ukraine's declaration of full responsibility for the destruction of the Sibir Airlines TU-154 airliner and the deaths of its 78 passengers on October 4, as well as admission that one of its S-200 rockets released during live-fire exercises on the Crimean peninsula at the time had caused the catastrophe, were the final steps in a gradual change in position taken by the country.

Originally Kyiv had absolutely refused to consider that one of its missiles had gone astray and traveled 250 kilometers off target. The first hint at a change of stance came two days after the tragedy when Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh stated that all possible versions as to what happened to the TU-154, which was traveling over the Black Sea from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Russia, had to be considered.

Even as late as October 22 Mr. Marchuk, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, had explained after a meeting of the Russian commission investigating the destruction of the TU-154 that, while all indications pointed to Ukrainian responsibility for the S-200 missile, he believed that conclusions that could well be premature must be withheld until experts authoritatively determined what actually happened. He had demanded that investigators travel to the Crimean training site before drawing final conclusions.

The national security chief's comments came in response to a statement by Vladimir Rushailo, chairman of the Russian investigation commission who had asserted that mathematical modeling supported evidence that the missile that destroyed the plane came from the Crimean peninsula.

In giving the most detailed account to date of what had happened to plane, Mr. Rushailo said the total flying time of the Zenit-class surface-to-air missile was 220 seconds, which would have allowed it to travel 248 kilometers. He said that experts had determined through mathematical modeling that the distance and the missile's point of impact with the plane would have put its origin "at a point with coordinates that coincide with the location of the [firing range] on the Crimean peninsula."

Mr. Rushailo said the missile exploded about 15 meters above the passenger jet and that the rear of the plane took the brunt of the impact.

Earlier, the head of the investigation had revealed that shrapnel from an errant S-200 missile had hit the airliner and had put some 350 holes into it. Five large pieces of metal salvaged from the Black Sea, which were not compatible with the construction of the TU-154, were used to determine that the destruction was due to a missile, and to identify the type of missile involved.

In his acknowledgment of Ukraine's responsibility President Kuchma did not question any of Mr. Rushailo's assertions. He stated only that a Ukrainian investigation now must take place to determine how such a grievous error could have occurred.

Gen. Kuzmuk, the person who for the moment has taken the responsibility for the incident via his resignation - which Mr. Kuchma finally accepted after it was twice offered - made an unusual statement during a radio interview on October 19 that may have set in motion the final events leading up to the president's acknowledgment. Gen. Kuzmuk said at the time that he had never doubted that the cause of the plane's destruction was the Ukrainian missile.

"For me, from the very beginning there were no other versions, and there could not be," explained Gen. Kuzmuk, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

The statement led to some consternation on the part of Ukrainian officials and renewed calls for the defense minister's resignation because 10 days earlier Gen. Kuzmuk had told national deputies of the Verkhovna Rada that it was not possible that an errant Ukrainian missile was involved.

Gen. Kuzmuk and other Ukrainian military officials could still face criminal responsibility for the tragedy. The Procurator General's Office is now reviewing the series of events to determine culpability.

During his address to the nation, President Kuchma named Gen. Volodymyr Shkidchenko, currently head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, as the acting minister of defense.

That same evening on a different television channel, an army general of the Ukrainian Reserves made a statement confirming a rumor that has floated about for days in Kyiv. Lt. Gen. Oleksander Ihnatenko told a talk show that the military exercises during which the errant missile that downed the TU-154 was fired were held on a Russian-controlled training site in the Crimea.

He explained that he had taken it upon himself to unilaterally release this information because he did not understand why Ukrainian officials had completely downplayed it thus far.

"Traditionally, the commander of the training site and the commander of the training exercises share common responsibility for the outcomes. This is common knowledge among military-types," explained Lt. Gen. Ihnatenko. "So why hasn't Russia taken responsibility as well?"

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