Born in the northern province of Chernihiv on the border with Russia, he spent much of his career as a missile engineer, at the missile range at Baikonur in Kazakhstan and the top-secret Pivdenie missile factory near Dnipropetrovsk, where he eventually became general director.

BBC: [ image: Leonid Kuchma points to the record]

The Russians produced often-equivalent tools in a special factory dedicated to supporting secret operations.

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With its newly purchased factory it could put that secret sauce to use.

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It was once a top secret Soviet facility but today it is the biggest uranium production factory in Kazakhstan.

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Fantine, a worker at the factory, is discharged by an incompetent and merciless foreman, when it is discovered that she has a secret daughter, but not a husband.

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"If people bring things into China to get them manufactured here, I think keeping that technology secret, as it were, will be very, very difficult, " says Graham Hughes, a South African factory manager based near Beijing.

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