To break the horrible chain of misfortunes that have haunted Ukraine’s Armed Forces for the past four years is one of the goals of the defense reform launched by the Defense Ministry. Ukraine’s Defense Minister made a statement to this effect during his televised appearance on Yury Makarov’s “Document” program, during which he discussed the reorganization processes underway in the Ukrainian Army. According to Minister Yevhen Marchuk, our huge army (numbering 335,000 enlisted men and officers) “is not adequate to the economic capabilities of the state.” However, aside from reducing the army’s strength the defense reform envisions a fundamental reorganization of infrastructure, which will be trimmed and upgraded, he stressed. According to him, this process will begin after the relevant law passes the parliament. The goal of the first stage, a stage of radical reform (2004-2005), will be to release funds for the development of the army. Over this period a major part of Ukraine’s military formations will be disbanded and reformed. In particular, numerous military bases with military equipment will be disbanded. Some 400 garrison towns will be transferred to civilian control over two years. Significant military hardware cuts are envisioned, which will affect some 2.000 artillery systems, 2.000 tanks, 400 jet fighters and military transports. “This is a colossal burden that devours huge funds. Until now we have had a ridiculous defense budget. All of it was spent to feed the army. In 2003, a mere 10% or perhaps slightly more was allocated for the development of the Armed Forces. Thus, we were funding a model of degradation,” Marchuk said, adding that his ministry has managed to reach a budgetary consensus with the government, and all financial calculations for the defense reform have been made until 2015.
According to Minister Marchuk, the second stage of the defense reform should be rearmament, since after 2007 the service life of a major part of rocket and artillery armaments and military aviation will expire. As he put it, “We will not be able to fly such planes or use the rocket and artillery systems, unless we want the Tu-154 and Sknyliv accidents repeated. This is why the defense reform is needed — to begin using a major share of funds to upgrade the army. Even rough estimates of specialists of both the Defense Ministry and those of the Economy and Finance Ministries suggest that already in 2006 we will be able to spend some UAH 500 million on new equipment and modernization. The government has not allocated such an amount since independence.”






