KYIV. March 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Several hundred decommissioned missiles in Ukraine have not been accounted for, the country's defense minister, Yevhen Marchuk, told the Den newspaper.
"Unfortunately, such strange things happen. We are presently looking for several hundred missiles. They were decommissioned, but we cannot find them. They are believed to have been disposed of. So good, they've been disposed of. But each of these missiles contains gold, silver and platinum. So what has happened to that?" Marchuk said.
The defense minister said that his ministry did not abide by the 2000 law on a unified accounting system until the summer of 2003.
Since the Defense Ministry did not have a unified accounting system, the inventories it allegedly conducted did not reveal anything, he said.
"The difference between the two inventories taken at a six- month interval was UAH900bn (USD168.69bn). The first inventory was taken before my appointment. The second one was based on property value. I was unhappy with the results and we introduced more effective methods and involved new people, which increased the difference by another UAH100bn (USD18.74bn)," he said.
"In other words, nobody really knows what the armed forces have. To tell the truth, since there was no accounting system, I cannot say that this information is accurate even after the two inventories," Marchuk said.