For Soldiers and Generals

Yesterday independent Ukraine celebrated the Day of Defenders of the Motherland for the fifth time. President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma greeted Ukrainian veterans and the military; state leaders laid flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Kyiv. Irrespectively of different attitudes to the historical basis of this holiday, which replaced the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy, it is more than simply a tradition or an analog of the Mother’s Day for men. Last Saturday, on the eve of the holiday, decorating a group of the military with state awards and insignia from the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, head of Ukraine’s military department Yevhen Marchuk stressed that those who protected their homeland during World War II, as well as those who are on service today, fulfilling their constitutional duty in Ukraine or bringing peace to other peoples, equally deserve respect, no matter what the historical or calendar meaning of this day is. “A defender of the Motherland is always a defender of the Motherland,” Minister Marchuk said.

Among the recipients of the awards were not only officers but also private Yury Shyliuk, driver of the automobile regiment of the Fifth Separate Motorized Brigade of the Armed Forces in Ukraine in Iraqi Republic. In October 2003 in the traffic accident near Es-Suveir Shyliuk, who was driving a mini-van with a group of Ukrainian officers, took the blow himself, receiving serious injuries. On the eve of the professional military holiday the defense minister decorated Yury Shyliuk with the medal To the Defender of the Motherland. In general, eighteen state awards (including medals For Military Service to Ukraine, For Faultless Service, third degree, and To the Defender of the Motherland) were presented at the Order Hall of the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, along with seventeen insignia from the Defense Ministry and conferring honorable ranks to a number of persons.

In his brief speech at the ceremony Yevhen Marchuk expressed his confidence that officers would do everything possible to speed up the process of reforming Ukraine’s Armed Forces and raise them to a qualitatively new level. A brief survey conducted by The Day ’s correspondent among the officers present demonstrated that this confidence is far from unfounded: most of the award recipients take the reform positively. For example, Deputy Head of the Central Operative Administration of the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Col. Oleksandr Shutov (decorated with the Defense Ministry’s sign of Veteran of Military Service) believes that challenges and threats, which are viewed as major both in Ukraine and Europe, as well as globally, are further evidence of the need for the reform. Combative armed forces require decent financing, while paying the funds for maintaining a big army is inexpedient, says Col. Shutov (incidentally, the first Ukrainian officer to graduate from the German Bundeswehr Academy, who is familiar with the practice of optimizing army structure not just by hearsay).