Ukraine is looking for "hundreds of rockets," Defense Minister Yevgeny Marchuk wrote in Friday's edition of the Den daily.

"Each one of these rockets contains gold, silver, and platinum," he said.

His comments were the first official confirmation of charges from the opposition Communist Party that Ukraine has lost trace of some 200 missiles.

Marchuk refused to specify what sort of missiles remain unaccounted for.

"I will be honest -- to this day ... I still do not have certain information" about what is in stock in Ukraine's military, the denfense minister said.

Ukraine was the third-largest nuclear power in the world at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, possessing 176 strategic missiles and 1,300 nuclear warheads.

All of the warheads were transferred to Russia by 1996 in a trilateral disarmament accord signed between Kiev, Moscow and Washington.

Ukraine began to destroy its intercontinental ballistic missiles in 1999.

US-Ukraine ties were badly hurt last year by allegations, determined by Washington to be true, that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma had personally approved the sale of an advanced radar system to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions.

Now, Ukraine is the fourth largest contributor of troops to the US-led stabilization effort in Iraq, with some 1,650 soldiers on the ground in southeastern Iraq.

WAR.WIRE