Want a Used MIG or a Tank? Try Ukrainian Exchange

In the market for a MIG-27 fighter-bomber? How about a pair of diesel-powered submarines or even a dozen S-300 short-range missiles?

Those were among the sundry weaponry that went up for bids here this week, along with the usual wholesale sugar, steel, linoleum and women’s shoes, at the Universal Ukrainian Siberian Exchange.

With little function left in an age of shrinking budgets and armies, about $2.2 billion worth of Russian armaments are available to buyers through the brokerage services of the first commercial weapons exchange in the former Soviet Union.

But after Thursday’s opening bell in the cold auditorium that serves as the exchange’s trading floor, nobody mentioned weapons, or even saw them.

“All of these weapons are in Russia,” said Oleg Taranov, president of the exchange. The sellers, who requested anonymity, are Russian as well, he said, hinting that the used merchandise may come from Russia’s Defense Ministry and new items from that country’s increasingly export-oriented military-industrial complex.

The only visible trace of the military hardware was in computer printouts tacked on display boards in the auditorium foyer. The merchandise listed there seemed enough to equip a small army--everything from short-range rockets and nuclear-capable cannons to armored personnel carriers and complete antiaircraft complexes.

Only firearms were missing, although it was the exchange’s offer of machine guns six months ago--its first venture into military marketing--that established its reputation as an arms broker.

Thursday the exchange was offering 200 World War II-vintage cannons at $21,000 apiece. Top-of-the-line but slightly used T-80 tanks--21 of them, complete with sophisticated armor, laser range-finders and night-vision optics--cost $2.2 million apiece.

There are even M-24 Hind helicopter gunships, packed with an arsenal of guns, rockets, antitank weapons and bombs, for those special clients willing to spend $1 million for custom orders. The 27 MIGs on the block go for $16 million apiece.

Although the exchange’s catchy advertising circular boasts that “(Iraqi dictator Saddam) Hussein will regret that he has no seat on the exchange,” it probably would not give him one. Prospective buyers must prove that they are licensed arms traders whose payments are guaranteed by a first-class bank. They must also show permission to import weapons at their final destination, which must not be anywhere in the former Soviet Union or in hot spots such as Yugoslavia and Iraq, where weapons sales would violate international embargoes.

“We don’t want any trouble with the United Nations or international law,” said Taranov, 37, who founded the exchange in 1991 and was named by the city last week as Kharkov’s “man of the year.”

The risk of shady weapons dealers slipping through controls is only a hypothetical problem so far, since nobody has actually bought any of the weapons. Taranov said the exchange has received nibbles via telephone from unnamed Australians, Western Europeans and an American firm based in Moscow.

If appropriate buyers come forward, the exchange will inform its anonymous client in Russia, “and the rest is up to them,” said the exchange’s deputy director, Vladimir Panchenko, 33.

Panchenko was careful to explain that the exchange is not actually selling weapons, since Ukrainian law forbids commercial sales of military hardware.

“We’re just middlemen, bringing together buyers and sellers,” he insisted, “and that is perfectly legal.” The exchange will charge a commission on any sales that can be arranged.

Officials in Kiev, upon learning of the arms bazaar, were more concerned with denying involvement in it.

“I don’t know what they’re doing, but Ukraine does not sell weapons,” said a Defense Ministry press officer.

A member of Parliament active in military affairs disputed that claim. “Ukraine has been selling weapons for some time to different countries,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But they will deny it to everyone.”

A deal with Poland is in the works: On Monday, Polish Defense Minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz went to Kiev with a long shopping list of military hardware. In talks with Viktor Antonov, the minister in charge of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, they agreed to barter Polish firearms in exchange for Ukrainian-built rotor blades and short-range rockets for helicopters.