CONCLUSION
(Read part 1 of the article here)
On Thursday, March 8, the National Press Club hosted the ninth U.S.-Ukraine Security Dialogue in Washington, the latest collaborative effort by the Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR), the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) and the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA). The conference aimed to bring the best and latest information about Ukraine’s National Security Strategy into the mainstream conversation about international affairs in the United States. A story in the April 15 issue of this newspaper summarized the first half of the conference; a summary of the afternoon sessions follows.
A series of senior U.S. and Ukrainian strategists as well as defense and security experts set out in the second half of the conference to present a variety of proposals “Identifying Ukraine’s Security Priorities” at the ninth U.S.-Ukraine Security Dialogue.
Central to the debate of the day were the remarks by Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Havrylov, defense attaché to the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S., who has been called upon repeatedly to keep his American counterparts updated on the modernization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Also key were the remarks of Glen Grant, a British defense expert working in Ukraine since 2010 and the author of a much discussed submission published by the Kyiv Post titled, “How Ukraine can build an Army to Beat Putin,” which offered criticisms on the specifics of Ukraine’s military development since 2014.
Carly Frame, legislative assistant to Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.)
Maj. Gen. Havrylov presented at a stand-alone session on “The Present State of the Russo-Ukraine Conflict” that was prefaced by the remarks of Stefan Romaniw, secretary-general of the Ukrainian World Congress and president of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations. Mr. Romaniw summarized the present state of Ukraine-Russia relations, citing Russia’s continued flaunting of international accords, the continued dissemination by Russia of anti-Ukrainian propaganda throughout Russian and international media, Russia’s continued cyberattacks against Ukraine, and Russia’s repeated denials of any involvement in the military actions in Ukraine.
Commenting on the latest news out of Great Britain concerning the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Mr. Romaniw likened the brazen attack to the assassination of Stepan Bandera in 1959: “same method, same approach, same reason.”
Maj. Gen. Havrylov detailed the invasion of Ukrainian territories by what he referred to as a Russian occupational force. In his description of this force, he broke down Russian forces in Ukraine into their component parts, beginning with “some number” of local Ukrainian citizens at the lowest levels (with reasons for enlistment ranging from matters of basic survival, to the lack of available employment, as well as other means of “Russian motivation”); ethnic Russian volunteers with various citizenships; and mercenaries from Russia. In contrast, Ukraine’s intelligence services understand that “regular, active-duty Russian military” personnel staff the command positions of this occupational force, with their identities altered along with forged documents in case of capture.
Herman Pirchner (left), founding president of the American Foreign Policy Council, and Janusz Bugajski of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Due to this command structure, he said this Russian occupational force is fully integrated within the command-and-control structure of the Russian military base across the Ukrainian border in Rostov, which has a “direct line” of communication to Moscow. In practical terms, this means that within the occupied territory of Ukraine, Russia actively controls the communications of its occupational force, the deployment of UAVs (drones) and other air defenses over the occupied territories, as well as electronic warfare, long-range artillery and the deployment of mechanized tank units.
As far as the state of Ukraine’s military, Maj. Gen. Havrylov described a completely transformed army after three years of continued war. Having visited the frontlines repeatedly since the beginning of the war, he said he no longer sees checkpoints staffed by soldiers in mismatched uniforms, armed with a variety of weapons and communicating through cellphones. Today’s Ukrainian army, he reported, is staffed by combat-experienced personnel that look professional and are equipped with the necessary equipment to carry out their assigned missions. Furthermore, Ukraine today has “a generation of young officers who know how to fight Russians” and are highly motivated.
Maj. Gen. Havrylov acknowledged that there certainly are problems that Ukraine needs to resolve, including the logistics of supporting an active defense barrier across 450 kilometers, as well as an improved command-and-control system.
Mr. Grant posed a question to the conference attendees at the start of his presentation: “Can the Ukrainian military face Russia if they come?” The key to his premise was that, if Russia were to decide on a full military takeover of Ukraine, it would not stay in the Donbas, around which Ukraine’s military installations are now aligned.
Mr. Grant’s opening slide presentation showed no fewer than 18 possible attack vectors against Ukraine that involves three-quarters of Ukraine’s borders. To be prepared against such a possibility, Mr. Grant argued that this situational reality argues in favor of “mobility for the Armed Forces of Ukraine” and “agility from the officers within the Armed Forces to make quick military decisions and to fight where they can, when they have to.”
In this assessment, both he and the military attaché were in agreement that the issues plaguing Ukraine’s army are not in the fighting forces themselves, but in the logistics and command-and-control structure. Chief on Mr. Grant’s list of issues that need to be addressed is the lack of a “central military coordinating body” in Ukraine. The Joint Headquarters of the Ministry of Defense does not incorporate the command structures of the Ukrainian Navy, Air Force, or National Police. To Mr. Grant, this represents a big gap in Ukraine’s defense policy, and is something that Russia would exploit in undertaking a further invasion.
In between the aforementioned presentations were two additional panel discussions. Chairing the panel on “Defining Ukraine’s Cybersecurity Priorities” was Ambassador William Courtney, executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum. The panel discussion featured input by Alex Mehrle, president of Ukraine Global Trade & Investor; Bob Flores, co-founder of the strategic consulting firm Cognitio; and Carly Frame, legislative assistant to Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who had earlier opened the conference with his remarks. Ms. Frame detailed the origins of the U.S.-Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017, introduced by Rep. Boyle and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), both members of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.
Mr. Mehrle, an active participant in the day’s question and answer sessions following each panel, placed the topic of cybersecurity within the greater context of Russia testing the resolve of the United States and the West through various means – testing that, in his estimation, “we are not doing a very good job understanding, recognizing and responding to.”
Walter Zaryckyj (left) of the Center for U.S.-Ukrainian Relations and Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Havrylov, defense attaché to the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S.
Mr. Flores expanded the topic by framing cybersecurity as a concern for the entire world. Whereas, “some of the smartest computer scientists in the world are in Ukraine,” Russia views Ukraine as “an easy target, ” he said, with a lot of critical infrastructure upon which to test its cyberwarfare techniques. The United States and allies such as Israel have developed effective strategies of cyberdefense that Mr. Flores recommended implementing in Ukraine, before Russia develops and tests a cyberattack in Ukraine that it considers successful enough to test against advanced industrial countries.
Ambassador Roman Popadiuk, the first U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the new chairman of the World Affairs Councils of America, chaired the panel on “Pinpointing Ukraine’s Needs in Defending Against Information Warfare.” He opened the panel with a summary of Russian techniques used to sow disinformation, including denying involvement in the face of overwhelming evidence, the overuse of legal jargon to obscure the meaning of one’s actions, and the concealment of one’s actual goals by minimizing or limiting stated objectives. These techniques, complemented with a show of force, constitute a Russian toolbox of disinformation with which to fool the rest of the world.
Janusz Bugajski of the Center for European Policy Analysis followed with an outline of what information warfare can entail, defining its components and its means of attack and analyzing Russia’s chosen targets of information attack in Ukraine. He spoke about how best to deploy an effective defense against an information war, including the development of a sustained offensive against the primary aggressor, Russia.
Serhii Vysotskyi, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, discussed his reasoning in determining why Russia believes that its informational warfare allows it to win. For Russia, he said, this involves maintaining an unbroken line of counterintelligence – “the system” – within and beyond its borders for nearly a century.
The last member of the panel, Herman Pirchner, founding president of the American Foreign Policy Council, had spent time last summer as part of an official delegation of international security experts visiting Ukraine, including members of the Jamestown Foundation, the Hudson Institute and The Heritage Foundation, alongside Ukrainian American representatives of the CUSUR and the UCCA.
He observed that “the peak time of Russian propaganda effectiveness has already passed,” as evidenced by the growing number of nations unwilling to tolerate Russia’s obfuscations at the United Nations, as well as a similar level of unity in this regard in the U.S. legislative and executive branches, which includes the opinions he hears from both the departments of State and Defense. However, in the digital realm, particularly social media, there is still a lot of work to be done if the goal is to successfully counter Russia’s information war, he added.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly was joined by two members of Ukraine’s Parliament, Oksana Syroyid (Samopomich), vice-chair of the Verkhovna Rada; and Artur Herasymov, (Petro Poroshenko Bloc), chair of the Rada’s Committee on Military-Industrial Complex and Military-Technical Cooperation, to present on the topic of “Why Ukrainian Security Matters – The Ukrainian Perspective.”
To offer another perspective, Chatham House’s James Sherr spoke at a stand-alone session in the afternoon titled “Why Ukrainian Security Matters – A Western Perspective.” He was introduced by Orest Deychakiwsky of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, who posed the question “Does the West understand why Ukraine’s security matters?” Mr. Sherr re-emphasized the seriousness of the “legal and treaty regime” developed after the end of World War II which has been repeatedly dismissed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Two examples of dismissed international agreements include Russia’s violation of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed in 1997, as well as the oft-cited Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine signed in 1994 by the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom.
In answer to the title of his presentation, Mr. Sherr quoted Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov, who stated in October 2014 that “Moldova and the Baltic states need to consider events in Ukraine and draw conclusions.” If international agreements such as those Ukraine signed on to can be so easily dismissed, then NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania must surely question if their binding agreements would remain inviolable in the coming years, he noted.
(Read part 1 of the article here)