In the KB “South” said that the DPRK could illegally copy rocket engines
KYIV, August 15. /TASS/. General designer of KB “southern” (str — former Dnepropetrovsk) Alexander Degtyarev remembered how in 2012 in Ukraine was convicted two citizens of the DPRK for spying on “Pivdenmash” and did not rule out that someone could make a copy of the Ukrainian engine.
“Our engines are highly regarded and used throughout the world. So I don’t know, maybe somewhere some copies managed to do it,” — said Degtyarev edition of “Country”, commenting on The New York Times (NYT) about the possible cooperation between the Ukrainian enterprise “Yuzhmash” with Pyongyang. The designer also expressed confidence that “no employee [KB] was not involved in the creation of a rocket engine in the DPRK”.
At the same time, Degtyarev, recalled an incident in 2012 when two DPRK nationals who were employees of the trade mission of the DPRK in Belarus — Ryu of Songkla and Whether Dakila — was sentenced to eight years for espionage to “Pivdenmash” and “South”.
As found out a consequence, they tried to recruit employees of Ukrainian enterprises. They were interested in secret data concerning the equipment of rocket and space technology, in particular, fuel systems of aircraft.
Spies was detained during the shooting of dissertations classified as “secret”. Then, says the designer, leakage of valuable information did not happen.