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The Year Lost by the Ukrainian Army

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The Year Lost by the Ukrainian Army The Year Lost by the Ukrainian Army Another day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is an occasion to sum up the results and look into their future. Frankly, the outgoing year is coming to an end for the country's Armed Forces with... great uncertainty. On the one hand, Ukraine has new missile weapons. Multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) "Vilha" with a new corrected ammunition that provides high-precision damage at a range of 70 km. In the last days of November, Ukraine has completed the development of cruise missile R-360 "Neptune" with a range of 300 km (from the very beginning for noone attributed himself non-existent victories, I remind that the design work was started during the President-fugitive Yanukovych, and, despite the successful launch in spring 2013, a decision on development continuation was adopted only in January 2016). On the other hand, just before the day of the AFU, very contradictory statements of the chief of the General Staff, Ruslan Khomchak, appeared with a difference of several days. At first, the General noted that military aggression from Russia is not the primary threat, but then, after a barrage of criticism, unexpectedly set tasks for the Armed Forces for 2020 — "prepare for the offensive". The first statement, though taken out of context by commentators, carried a strange (not to say blasphemous) message for the Commander — In- Chief: there is no point in preparing for a large-scale war. The next - it seems, purely emotional, made against the background of criticism — is impossible in principle (if we are talking seriously about an intense, large-scale war). It is good that the Head of the General Staff refrained from repeating the sly thesis of Petro Poroshenko - about the "strongest army in Europe". However, the appearance on the air of absolutely opposite ratings on their links from the first military person of the State, at least, is alarming. Especially against the background of the recent defense review, in which the military Department announced eight negative scenarios (of which four are uncompromising, multi — format war against Ukraine), calculated by the Main intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense, are fully justified. By the way, I must remind that during the consideration of these scenarios, the reaction of the General Staff was, to put it mildly, inadequate to the proposed models. So far, it is difficult to explain the real intentions of the country's military leadership. That is, the extended cycle of defense planning serves as a barrier (or cover) for the lack of real results of Defense Forces development, especially in terms of re-equipment of the Army (as described below). Or the current style is a camouflaged curtsey to the Kremlin before the main negotiations of the year — about peace. I would like to believe in the second, but the signs are different… Is "Norman Summit" the Rubicon for Army? With amazing naivety, the Ukrainian Government is waiting for a miracle from a new meeting in the "Normandy" format. Meanwhile, for most experts, the negotiation process is not just dubious, but very risky. Reaching a peace agreement at any cost, that is, on the terms of the Kremlin, with very obvious concessions, can turn into a boomerang for a tough confrontation between the Government and the active part of society. And here the risks far exceed the drop in ratings, since the Moscow Agency is not asleep, and military groups near the Eastern borders are not quartered for nothing. Refusal to conclude any deal automatically generates a continuation of the war, and, quite possibly, more intense and "hot". On the background of depressive statements by the French President Macron about the" brain death "of NATO, we can conclude that the European partners will either let the negotiations between Zelensky and Putin "one- on-one" take their course, or they can even play along with the owner of the Kremlin. At least copying by the President Zelensky of his predecessor's strategy with reference to peace talks and political and diplomatic levers - with the outright elimination of the Supreme Commander — In-Chief from the idea of creating a powerful army - today remains one of the main challenges for Ukraine at the present stage. The army has never liked Poroshenko, but has not yet fallen in love with Zelensky. And this was and remains a significant disadvantage of the Supremes. It seems that this is why, on the eve of the talks, the Russian center for political conjuncture — a specific private company that probes the implementation of various ideas in the interests of the Russian Government - issued such an unambiguous assessment: "Zelensky's positions in the country do not look like strong enough to see him as a negotiator ready to guarantee the implementation of all external agreements... If the Ukrainian President is unable to perform its obligations, referring to problems within the country or demanding changes in the terms of the agreement, it ceases to be a valuable partner in the dialogue for Russia." In other words, far back the Kremlin considered frank concessions from the Ukrainian President and strict guarantees of their implementation the only possible result of the negotiations. This hypothesis was confirmed by Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation convincing appearance on the stage with a statement about the possibility of secession from Ukraine of a number of regions. Vyacheslav Volodin's horror story is nothing more than a "backup" of the Russian position with the prospect of a more intense, and possibly larger-scale war in the event of the failure of the Russian plan of December 9. Image of the Ukrainian Army - Deferred Decisions In the development of the Ukrainian Army there are two parts: open and closed. The first includes promising talks about NATO, future abolition of conscription, creation of a Professional Army (in a very vague, not calculated by years future), design of a long-overripe idea — an effective territorial defense. Sometimes experts add theses about the asymmetrical weapon of deterrence. The second part — the State Defense order - is always retouched sphere, because it contains signs of the real state of affairs. The first one says a lot. For example, in early November of this year, the Minister of Defense Andriy Zagorodnyuk noted that the professional army will replace the draft in Ukraine, but this is a gradual process. In unison with the Minister, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Fraction "Servant of the People", David Arahamiya, proposed to reduce the draft for military service "by 20%, then by another 20%, and in this step- by-step way to reach 100%". This does not contradict the summer statements of the Commander-In-Chief. The number of combat units will not decrease, the "regularization of the regular number" is coming, but "in the near future we will not give up the current mixed system of Army recruitment," - General Khomchak explained with careful wording from the second half of the 1990s. That is, he has recognized the lack of combat units (according to experts, it is about 40%) and even said that "the States have inflated" (they are Soviet, designed for an army of 350 thousand persons). But how will the army develope he has not informed. But the Ministry of Defense has more than enough talk about the rapprochement with NATO and the development of NATO standards. It would be logical and right if it is synchronized with AFU rearmament, the real solution of the motivation problem and the appearance of clear picture of the Army and military itself prospects instead of blurry spots. As an argument, so far we have seen a blatant outflow of professional staff at all levels — from the soldier to the General. So maybe this is an attempt to get into NATO through the wrong door? Now experts hint that the construction of Pro-NATO structures detached from reality resembles artificial cultivation of watery cucumbers in a test tube with the help of hydroponics. The above-mentioned aspects to the picture of defense construction show a lot. Firstly, that there is no unanimity in understanding the type of future AFU, as also there is no dialogue about it. "Secondly" follows from the first: the army will not change and develop, and plans to eat up to 72-76% of Defense expenses as before. So, there are not enough funds for re-equipment and new technologies traditionally. A vicious circle that delays the creation of a modern army as a functioning institution of deterrence for many years. It turns out that even the government is not able to dispose the funds allocated for rearmament. State Defense Order is a Litmus Paper of Military Test Unfortunately, promises to declassify an unreasonably classified part of the State Defense order (SDO) have not been fulfilled. Although the society, when delegating power, has the right to demand an account of how this power was disposed of. It's not a secret that for five years of the war, Petro Poroshenko's team worried almost exclusively about the deliveries of repaired and slightly modernized Soviet equipment. New technologies were interested either in the context of PR, or from the point of view of lobbying groups close to the Head of the State. And since a significant part of the development cycles for new weapons and military harware (WMH) has been completed in 2019, the expert environment relied on the activation of new production facilities and the delivery of new defense systems. This has not happened yet. As Sergey Zgurets, Director of the Information and Cconsulting Company Defense Express, said on the eve of the AFU Day, new samples of them were produced only in limited quantities in 2019.
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