Shkidchenko out, Marchuk in as defense minister (06/29/03)

Shkidchenko out, Marchuk in as defense minister

by Maryna Makhnonos
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma on June 25 dismissed Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko - who submitted his resignation last week after presidential criticism of his work - and appointed the country's top security official to the post.

Mr. Kuchma introduced National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk as Mr. Shkidchenko's successor at a meeting with top Defense Ministry officials, presidential spokeswoman Olena Hromnytska said.

"Today I signed a decree on the appointment of a civilian defense minister," President Kuchma said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Interfax also reported that in addressing his new subordinates, Mr. Marchuk said that Ukraine's armed forces "should be more flexible, more effective and ready to fulfill tasks on observing Ukraine's security, be quickly adaptable for colossal changes in Ukraine and the world."

Mr. Marchuk, 62, was born in the central Ukrainian region of Kirovohrad and has a pedagogical and law education. His career spans posts from that of a KGB official in Soviet times to chief of the Security Service of Ukraine in 1991-1994. He also served as vice prime minister and prime minister in 1994-1996, has the rank of an army general, was twice elected to the Parliament and ran for president in 1999, receiving 8.13 percent of the vote.

Social-Democratic politician Leonid Kravchuk praised the appointment, citing the new minister's competence "in special services" and his knowledge of the army "from inside."

However, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz took the news as Mr. Marchuk's "honorary dismissal," meant to diminish the political weight he had at his previous post.

Mr. Shkidchenko's decision to resign came on June 20 after President Kuchma spoke at a hearing on the results of an inspection of military units' combat readiness, the use of the budgeted funds, the configuration and use of military facilities, and the armed forces' property on the Crimean peninsula. The hearing pointed out numerous shortcomings in the operations of Ukraine's naval forces.

Mr. Kuchma had sacked naval commander Admiral Mykhailo Yezhel in April, following spot inspections of fleet units in Sevastopol that uncovered widespread pilferage of equipment and poor staff conditions.

Minister Shkidchenko headed Ukraine's defense forces since Novem-ber 2001, after his predecessor, Oleksander Kuzmuk, resigned because a stray missile hit a Russian TU-154 passenger jet over the Black Sea during military exercises on October 4, 2001. All 78 people on board were killed in the downing of the aircraft.

Last year the president declined Minister Shkidchenko's first offer to resign, which came after the world's worst air show disaster during which a fighter jet plowed into a crowd of spectators near Lviv, killing 76 people.

Mr. Kuchma said he plans to appoint Mr. Shkidchenko to a managerial position at the armed forces' General Staff. "I want to say a good word to you, Volodymyr Petrovych, and your subordinates," Mr. Kuchma said to the ex-minister in front of defense officials.

In numerous discussions of defense reform and ways to overcome the crisis in Ukraine's defense forces, some politicians had called for the appointment of civilians to head the Defense Ministry. On June 19 the parliament adopted a bill on democratic control over the military, allowing civilians to take top defense positions.

In 1994-1996 Ukraine had experienced civilian control over its defense structures when Valerii Shmarov, who now heads the state weapons trading company Ukrspetsexport, was minister of defense.

In his June 25 speech President Kuchma urged the newly appointed minister to create a "civil ministry that would be able to implement modern methods of armed forces management."

Following the USSR's collapse in 1991, Ukraine's armed forces suffered an economic crisis. The Defense Ministry was chronically tardy in paying its servicemen and thousands of retirees and officers lacked appropriate housing.

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