“Such education and introduction of new approaches should occur either simultaneously at all levels or starting from the top tier of the chain of command—it will not work otherwise.”[1] Executive Summary After seven years of war, the Ukrainian defense system has not reformed. The reasons are...
jamestown.org
Quite interesting article from jamestown.org about the organisational state of Ukraine Armed forces. I put it here, as after read it, seems talk more on their ground forces.
Basically the article talk about that effort by US and NATO to help rebuild and empower Ukraine Armed forces risk coming to naught, due to the behavior not only on Ukrainian government but more importantly the Ukraine Armed Forces high command.
For me, I also see the degradation of Ukraine defense Industry. The whole defense industrial complex loosing not only order from Russia as used to be their main customers, but also other International customer. While Ukraine government it self can't provide order to keep them going.
I don't know how US and NATO can keep pumping money to Ukraine. While Ukraine it self seems not trying to revamp their practices not only Politically, but also their commercial effort.
The Ukrainian military is badly short on everything, and providing them basic equipment like Humvees, or radios, or NVGs, goes a long way. The Ukrainian military has also improved in areas like sniper and counter-sniper work, use of UAVs and artillery, and even basic infantry tactics. Not all of this is due to foreign aid, but foreign aid has had much to do with this. The article seems to think that by tossing a couple of billion dollars over 7 years the Ukrainian military should have transformed itself into a western-style war machine. This is an unrealistic expectation. The volume of foreign aid isn't enough, and Ukraine's own economy is too small to support a modern military of this size (or to build a modern military that can fight Russia at the state level). Ukraine could certainly benefit from comprehensive military reforms, and corruption as well as bureaucratic inertia certainly have much to do with why this hasn't happened. But it doesn't mean the aid isn't having any effect, and it doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect that this level of aid will radically transform the Ukrainian armed forces. Much of the evidence provided is sound, and the critique overall is accurate.
I'll respond to some things that jumped out at me. The article talks about fear of losing as a motivator for reform, but realistically there is no fear of losing. Russia isn't interested in escalating unless Ukraine crosses some red line, and even then it's highly unlikely Russian tanks will rush for Kiev. The article also mentions a military answer to the war. There is no military solution possible to the crisis for Ukraine fighting alone. There is no scenario, short of Russia being faced with some nation-shattering crisis elsewhere, where Ukraine can win this fight. Again Ukraine's economy, coupled with modest foreign aid, can't give it the ability to fight off Russia by itself. And this gets to the crux of the issue. When it comes to defeating the rebels, Ukraine doesn't need help. It just needs Russia to stay out. Which if not going to happen. When it comes to fighting Russia openly, this is a non-starter. Ukraine is not going to be able to win a full scale open fight against Russia, pretty much no matter what. Those kinds of resources simply aren't available.
There is also much talk about joining NATO in the article, and the writers seem to have picked up on the key issue. In Ukrainian circles "NATO standards" have become a mantra completely disconnected from reality. It's something Ukrainian political and military figures say but it doesn't bear up to any sort of scrutiny. In all honesty, I don't think Ukrainian leadership is interested in realistically joining NATO or the EU, in terms of the deep systemic changes this requires. What they want is foreign support, military, economic, and political, to solve their problems for them.
Final point. The Ukrainian side is not wrong to ask for more weapons. They really, very much and very badly, need more weapons, across almost the entire spectrum. As it stands the Ukrainian military is short in just about every area. They need more trucks, more AFVs, more tanks, more artillery, more radios, more missile systems, more everything. But this is disconnected from the reality that Ukraine can't afford the military it wants to field, or the war it's trying to win.
Side, note, it was particularly amusing to read the part about ammunition depot explosions. Russia went through its own series of ammunition depot explosions after the Serdyukov reforms, when live-fire exercises saw a drastic increase. They stemmed from the fact that poorly stored and often past their best-by date munitions were being pulled out of rotten wooden boxes by depot workers who didn't know what they were doing. In the course of this war Ukraine has had multiple occasions to draw stocks of equipment and munitions from old Soviet-era depots, yet the assumption the article makes about the findings of incompetency among the warehouse personnel are an attempt to direct the public away from blaming Russia for the incidents? Quite humorous. In my opinion Ukraine suffers from the same problems that Russia did when it comes to depot explosions; poorly trained and insufficient in number personnel trying to pull old, often expired, ammunition, stored improperly.