ANALYSIS: Ukraine adopts program for military reform

by Bohdan Sambirsky

After five years of experimentation and false starts, Ukraine finally adopted a plan for military reform called somewhat awkwardly the "State Program for the Building and Development of Ukraine's Armed Forces to the year 2005." The package was approved on December 28, 1996, at a closed session of the National Security and Defense Council chaired by President Leonid Kuchma. According to Volodymyr Horbulin, the council's secretary, Ukraine is the first among the Commonwealth of Independent States to have approved an all-encompassing military reform plan at the highest levels of government.

Efforts at reforming the armed forces began soon after Ukraine gained independence. At the time, active duty military personnel, without the Black Sea Fleet, numbered 726,000, making it one of the largest armies in Europe. Mr. Horbulin noted that during the past several years five different draft programs on military reform were developed, but none of them proved to be adequate. Ukraine's economic problems have been a major stumbling block in implementing reform of the military - a very costly process.

Another serious problem was the infighting and conflicts at the top levels of the Ministry of Defense, particularly during the tenure of Ukraine's first civilian defense chief, Valerii Shmarov. Mr. Shmarov was appointed acting minister of defense in August 1994 and confirmed by the Verkhovna Rada in October of that year. His appointment to the post met with a cool reception from the officer corps, and it was not uncommon for high-ranking generals to criticize their superior at public forums.

The Union of Officers of Ukraine was particularly displeased with Mr. Shmarov, who initially also retained his position as deputy prime minister for the military industrial complex, and actively sought his ouster. The conflict came to a head early last year and resulted in the dismissal of Gen. Anatolii Lopata, chief of the General Staff, who came to personify the opposition to Mr. Shmarov among Ukraine's military professionals.

Over and above the civilian-military aspect of the conflict, there were concrete differences between Mr. Shmarov and Gen. Lopata over the direction that military reform should take, specifically with regard to the administrative structure of the armed forces. Mr. Shmarov and First Vice Defense Minister Gen. Ivan Bizhan favored a plan that called for the replacement of Ukraine's remaining two military districts, the Carpathian and Odesa, with so-called operational-territorial commands (OTKs). The Kyiv Military District had already been abolished at the end of 1992 and served as the basis for the organization of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff. Gen. Lopata was categorically opposed to the idea of territorial commands and, indeed, favored the formation of a third military district with headquarters in Dnipropetrovsk.

One of the major criticisms of the proposed OTKs has been that it raises the specter of "regional armies" emerging in Ukraine. Although the problem of regional cleavages is often exaggerated, it is an enduring characteristic of Ukraine's political landscape that cannot be taken lightly.

In a nationwide poll conducted at the end of 1995 and in early 1996, the idea of confederation with Russia, Kazakstan, Belarus and other former Soviet republics drew widespread support in the heavily Russian and Russian-speaking eastern region of Ukraine (87 percent), Crimea (88 percent) and among ethnic Russians over all (80 percent). In the western region, a solid majority of two-thirds supported a sovereign and independent Ukraine.

With Gen. Lopata out of the way, Mr. Shmarov and his supporters proceeded with their plans and established an experimental Northern OTK with headquarters in Chernihiv. But the over-all reform of the military did not make any significant headway. In fact, the removal of Gen. Lopata exacerbated the already tense atmosphere in the Ministry of Defense.

President Kuchma, as commander-in-chief, must be credited with having taken the initiative and, ultimately, prodding his subordinates to finally take action. After the early experiments failed to produce any concrete results other than the mechanical downsizing of the army, he set the reform process in motion once again in early 1995 and provided the leadership of the Ministry of Defense with ample opportunity to work out a viable program of military reform.

In May 1996 President Kuchma brought together a specially formed working group of experts, including civilian specialists, to review the reform plans being devised within the narrow circle of Mr. Shmarov's supporters. Finally, in July 1996, the president took the logical step of firing his minister of defense, admitting that the experiment with a civilian defense chief had been premature. Mr. Shmarov's replacement is the 42-year-old Gen. Oleksander Kuzmuk, the former commander of the National Guard.

In mid-December 1996, some two weeks before the new reform program was adopted, President Kuchma addressed an enlarged session of the Military Collegium and delivered what may well be the most devastating critique of the state of Ukraine's armed forces since their formation. Emphasizing that the time of pleading and pointless discussions that served as a poor imitation of real work had been exhausted, the president announced that henceforth the generals would be held personally responsible.

How is it, he asked, that of the 191 mechanized and tank battalions of the ground forces not a single one is in a state of military readiness? Who can explain the reasons why, during the past few years, 2,500 pilots have left the air force? Why is that only one-third of Ukraine's bomber aircraft can get off the ground? When will Ukraine have a single system of air defense?

During the first nine months of 1996, "losses and deficits" within the Logistics Service amounted to nearly 4 million hryvni. In plain language, more than $2 million worth of military hardware and supplies were stolen. These figures represent only reported losses. President Kuchma asserted that there is every reason to believe that the actual figures are much higher. According to the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, Ukraine's Security Service is investigating 15 generals and 85 senior officers for complicity in the activities of dozens of organized criminal groups.

The president stated: "I can accept, although with a great deal of strain, some sort of explanation for all of this slovenliness, about which I talked, with regard to specific issues. However, when it comes to discipline, I will not accept and I do not want to hear any excuses. Discipline is the holiest of the holy in the army.

"But this is what we have today: a high rate of deaths, which are often passed off as accidental; the mass proliferation of savagery and barbarism in relations among military personnel, which are glossed over by calling them non-statutory relations; a rising wave of criminality in the armed forces. The statistics that I requested are stunning: 3,000 crimes in 10 months.

"We have, as they say, reached the end of the line. And there no one can point to the financial situation or to supply problems and the like. Where is your officer's code of honor?"

The president reminded his high-ranking audience that the people of Ukraine expect their children to return from military service alive and not as physical, spiritual and moral cripples. Clearly, it is a sad state of affairs that increasingly more young men are evading military service. "But you ask yourselves," said the president, "who would want to serve in this kind of an army?"

The situation described by President Kuchma is confirmed by other sources. A survey taken in April 1996 by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research together with the Social Monitoring Center, which encompassed 14 regions and over 1,000 officers, came to the conclusion that Ukraine's armed forces cannot be considered a full-fledged army and are incapable of performing their main function - to defend the state and its people.

Moreover, given the current situation regarding social guarantees, military ideology and force readiness, Ukraine's military is in fact being transformed into a destablizing force in society. A full 50 percent of the officers in the survey characterized their attitude toward their commander-in-chief - namely, President Kuchma - as negative; one-third described their attitude as completely negative. Defense Minister Shmarov fared even worse: two-thirds of the officers gave him a negative appraisal.

The proportion of respondents who favored forming a bloc with Russia and Belarus and supported integration with Ukraine's Slavic neighbors totaled 37 percent. Only 12 percent were oriented toward NATO and another 8 percent supported the Tashkent collective security pact led by Moscow. The largest group, 41 percent, were in favor of retaining Ukraine's non-aligned status. Only 4 percent of the officers felt the army could defend the country; 57 percent were convinced it could not. One out of three officers felt that it had been a mistake to enter the military profession.

According to figures from the Ministry of Defense, in the first half of 1996 crime in the military increased by 14 percent over the same period in the previous year; non-statutory relations (hazing) increased by almost 10 percent; evasion of military service by more than 45 percent; theft by more than 9 percent; and grand larceny by 45 percent. About 71,000 officers and their families remain without their own housing.

Whether or not the new state program will be able to rectify this situation is an open question. At this juncture, only the highlights of its contents have been made available.

The earlier planned downsizing of the armed forces to 350,000 by the end of 1996 has now been postponed to 2005. Recent statistics provided by the Ministry of Defense in compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, to which Ukraine is a signatory, show that as of January 1 Ukraine's armed forces, excluding sea-based military personnel, numbered almost 371,000. The problem here appears to be that there simply is not enough money to return servicemen to civilian life.

The Ukrainian military will be organized into four branch services: ground forces, air force, air defense force, and the navy. The ground forces, which currently account for about 43 percent of the total, will be organized into three operational commands - Western, Southern and Northern - based on the two existing military districts and the experimental Northern OTK. Two points bear emphasizing. First, Mr. Shmarov's proposal of operational - territorial commands (OTKs) has been dropped in favor of a command and control structure that is not very different from the old Soviet system of military districts. Mr. Horbulin confirmed this by stating that the transition to OTKs was premature. Second, there will now be a military command that faces the border with Russia in Chernihiv.

Also, each of the three operational commands will include mobile rapid reaction forces that are intended also for peacekeeping operations. The air force will consist of two aviation corps with a brigade and regimental structure. The air defense force will have three brigade-based corps. And the navy will be responsible for two districts, the Southern and Eastern.

The central bureaucracy of the Ministry of Defense and General Staff is to be reduced by 1,000 generals and officers, and the number of vice defense ministers will also be cut. At present, each of the commanders of the four branch services also holds the rank of vice minister of defense. Soon after independence, the Cabinet of Ministers decreed that the central bureaucracy should be limited to no more than 1,500. Instead, today it holds more than 3,500 officers and warrant officers.

The proposed reforms call for a new role for the General Staff, which will now be charged with overall defense planning and whose authority will be broadened to include other military formations outside of the Ministry of Defense. Clearly, the commander of the National Guard and his counterparts in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Border Troops will not be pleased with this decision.

At the same time, Gen. Kuzmuk made it clear that the longstanding discussions about the need to clearly delineate functions between the minister and the chief of the General Staff must stop. According to the minister of defense, what is needed is the strict subordination of the chief of the General Staff to the minister of defense rather than any kind of delineation. As for civilian control of the military, which was nominal in any case under the tenure of Mr. Shmarov, it appears that this notion has been postponed for the indeterminate future.

Finally, the state program calls for the drafting of a concrete plan for the modernization of armaments and military technology, which is to be completed by mid-1997. This is an area that quite rightly requires immediate attention. It is estimated that between 30 and 80 percent of the weapons arsenal and military technology, depending upon the category, are nearing their shelf life and will have to be phased out within the next five to 10 years.

At a recent press conference, Gen. Kuzmuk noted sarcastically that if steps are not taken soon to modernize Ukraine's military hardware, "after 2005 we may be left with national consciousness and Kalashnikovs." The reference to national consciousness was a swipe at what some critics feel was an overemphasis on the Ukrainianization of the military soon after independence at the expense of other urgent needs.

It is difficult to make a balanced judgment about the prospects for the successful implementation of the new reform program. Two problems, however, are fairly obvious. First, it is not at all clear where the financing for the state program will come from. All previous reform initiatives floundered precisely because of the lack of adequate funding. The draft state budget for 1997 calls for a 1.43 billion hrv allocation for the military (about $850 million U.S.), which is not much more than the 1.25 billion hrv budgeted in 1996. For the last few years, these amounts barely covered the minimal needs of the military - namely, salaries and provisions. Moreover, the Ministry of Defense rarely receives the full amounts that are in the budget.

The other major problem is that the state program requires the approval of the Verkhovna Rada and needs to be supplemented by additional military-related legislation in order for it to be implemented. In this connection, it should be pointed out that the Parliament finally adopted Ukraine's national security concept only in January. The military doctrine dates from the end of 1993 and is clearly outdated.

For those concerned about Ukraine's security, perhaps the only source of satisfaction is the recent report that the situation in neighboring Russia is probably even more dismal. According to the non-governmental Council for Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow, composed of respected analysts, members of Parliament, business leaders and journalists, "the present state of the Russian army can be described only as a catastrophe. The army has long ceased to be a guarantee against external threats."

Bohdan Sambirsky is an analyst of Ukrainian military and security affairs.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 2, 1997, No. 9, Vol. LXV

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