After inheriting remnants of Soviet military power, we have not made a
single step backward, to worse things. Instead, our army has acquired national
traits and meets the needs of our independent state. This quite optimistic
view was expressed by Minister of Defense Oleksandr Kuzmuk regarding December
6, the seventh anniversary of Ukraine's independent Armed Forces. What
is it like in this army of ours against the background of unending reductions,
staff shifts, and traditional incomplete financing?
An army either prepares for war or goes into battle. This is the axiom
of what the military is all about. Our generals try to honor it. The army,
which was supposed to march undefeated to the English Channel from Ukraine's
territory in complement "The Legendary and Undefeated," learns other things
now, "We do not need what is yours, but we will not give you what is ours."
According to the minister, much has been done to this end. A new military
doctrine is being developed. A strategic decision about military deployment
has been adopted for the first time. The troops have received new tasks.
New principles governing the types and methods of deployment have been
mastered; new functional components from defense forces to mobile ones
have been formed. The country has converted to a new system of military
administration - operative command; the territorial principle has been
assumed as a defense basis. Administrative structures have been cut by
40%. Troop strength has been reduced from 700,000 to 320,000 in seven years.
But it is still the third biggest army in Europe, after Russia and Turkey.
We are a power. How does can this power fight? "Well," the generals
declared after Autumn 1998 strategic training. We would like to believe
this or at least be certain that taxpayers' money is being used properly
somewhere.
However, the Ukrainian Army has never been spoiled with money. And it
is much easier to battle against a green or blue enemy on a map, than to
win a financial battle. The defense budget for 1998 was only half the Armed
Forces' minimum needs. The army actually did receive only a part of what
had been promised: 82% for maintenance (pay, food, uniforms) and 7.7% for
military equipment and weapons. Capital and housing construction budgets
received 8.5% and 19.8% respectively of what was planned. Securing participation
in international peacekeeping operations got 19%. "In general, the army
received 50% financing, while we fulfilled 100% of our job," the disgruntled
Defense Minister declares.
The army wants to have about Hr 3.6 billion for the next year. As usual,
they offered half. "We will fight for our budget and its increase," Kuzmuk
says. According to him, the army overcomes obstacles thanks to the professionalism
and enthusiasm of its officers.
What do officers think of their future and fate? No thorough poll has
been conducted in the army recently. The studies of 1992-1994 showed alarming
tendencies for the future. It was predicted then, that the army is becoming
stratified such that junior and senior officers and generals will have
different motivations for service. They also learned then that such personal
values as an officer's honor, as well as the value of personal professional
competence, are no longer decisive for officers who have been in service
for five to ten years. This layer of the junior officers is actually the
middle command. Are they still in the same mood? If so, there is a bigger
threat in this, than in the aging of our arsenals. The authorities do not
take enough trouble to create proper motivation for its officer corps.
The list of officers without their own apartments and waiting in line for
housing is almost constant: about 70,000. They also receive their equivalent
of $60-70 monthly pay after a two to three months delay, sometimes longer.
According to the law, a serviceman, unlike a civilian, is not allowed to
moonlight. Analysts subconsciously begin to use Russian templates for Ukrainian
realities. In the environs of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, Major Belyaev drove
his tank out of the barracks to the main square of the city protesting
constant pay delays and was supported by the local population. According
to political scientist Valery Matviyenko, Ukrainian officers' reaction
to this act is not reassuring, for over a half of all officers surveyed
were on the Major's side. 65% view their financial situation as terrible.
It is difficult to determine exactly how convincingly substantiated
these conclusions are. When summarizing the Army's annual activity, its
Commander in Chief Leonid Kuchma had adequate grounds to say that it actually
is a disgrace that officers live in poverty, and the army hardly makes
both ends meet. But this solicitude is to be interpreted more as masked
election campaigning than real concern about the army. We may assume that
the closer the elections come the better the government will be in paying
the money it owes people and not just servicemen. However, we do not want
the army to be paid attention to only occasionally at political turning
points, for it is, after all, the army, not just small change.







