But government thinks old way

Last week Ukraine held broad mobile force maneuvers. With due account of the exercise's objective and intensity, we can state that an action like this was taken for the first time since this country declared its independence. And the army wants to learn how to fight under contemporary conditions.

In short, military transport planes had to rapidly airlift about 300 paratroopers from one point in Ukraine to another over 900 kilometers. In addition to an air-mobile landing party, three to six airborne combat vehicles were also parachuted. Then the landing party will surmount a water obstacle and, in conjunction with a separate mechanized brigade, conducted live- ammunition shootings at the Rivne proving-ground in Western Ukraine.

Maneuvers like these are quite unique, and it is not surprising that soldiers have been training for them since last year. In reality, all the armed services, except perhaps the Navy, were involved. The main objective was to test in practice the theoretical foundations of the functioning of mobile forces worked out by the Ministry of Defense. The mobile forces, together with defense and deterrent formations, make up the functional triad of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While in the USSR airborne troops were intended, above all, for offensive operations, Ukraine has changed the priorities of its winged infantry training in line with its defensive doctrine. Specially designated air mobile and ground units, as well as those of transport and army aviation, form the basis of the mobile forces conceived as firemen in case of aggression against Ukraine. Mobile force units are supposed to turn up as soon as possible in the endangered place and offer resistance independently or with border security guards until the armed forces as a whole engage in repelling the aggression.

Before these maneuvers, Ukrainian air mobile units used, as a rule, the Anharsk proving grounds in the Crimea as the drop site. But is there any implicit meaning in Ukraine now directing its mobile power westward? The Defense Ministry press service gave a disarming answer: “There is no subtext here. They baled out in one place this time and will do so in another some other time. This is part of these maneuvers' plan.”

But while the army is learning to fight in a new style, the authorities are at the same time fighting for the military electorate. It was expected that the final stage of the maneuvers, brigade level shoots, would be watched by Leonid Kuchma. Last year, during the Autumn 1998 large-scale exercise dealing with the problems of Ukraine's comprehensive defense, generals were also expecting the arrival of their commander-in-chief. But it suddenly became known on the day of the highest hopes that Mr. Kuchma had gone to a milk-and-meat factory, rather than to the military. This caused surprise, to put it mildly, among the military. But now, in the presidential election campaign, the commander-in-chief will not venture to surprise the army yet again.