NATO to expand assistance for Ukraine
Military experts and political analysts said NATO’s increased support will have a significant impact on Ukraine, but added that the government needs to make every effort to efficiently manage and co-ordinate the Alliance’s assistance. NATO foreign ministers and partner countries discussed the situation in Ukraine last week in Brussels and set up the plan for further co-operation with the country.
“We strongly condemn Russia’s continued and deliberate destabilisation of eastern Ukraine in breach of international law,” reads the joint statement of the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC). “We will continue to promote the development of greater interoperability between Ukrainian and NATO forces.”
Officials said co-operation with NATO provides a chance for Ukraine to implement high-quality military reforms. Authorities in Kyiv also said partner countries will help Ukraine to modernise its weapons and other military equipment and reach high defence system standards.
“The value of NATO for Ukraine as a special partner is very important,” Ihor Dolgov, the head of Ukraine’s Mission to NATO, told journalists in Brussels. “The organisation currently not only shows the solidarity but does more to help Ukraine to reform the armed forces, get closer to NATO standards, make our forces interoperable.”
Experts said NATO’s support for Ukraine is especially important during its on-going conflict with Russia, as Kremlin-backed militia units continue military operations in eastern Ukraine.
“NATO is an integral element of international security system,” Dmytro Levus, the director of the Ukrainian Meridian Social Studies Centre, told SETimes. “Partnership with this organisation is very important for Ukraine. Especially now, when Russia continues supporting militia in Donbas, violating international agreements. Close co-operation with NATO will help Ukraine to implement military reform and start modernisation of the country’s defence system.”
Further co-operation with NATO will include military consultations, which experts say will become increasingly important because Ukrainian politicians have declared defence ministry reform as one of the new government’s main priorities. “The partnership has several aspects, starting from the political point of view to the technical assistance,” Oleksiy Melnyk, co-director of Foreign Relations and International Security Programmes of Razumkov Centre, told SETimes. “At this stage, co-operation with NATO is positive.”
The practical side of the partnership with the Alliance has already started with the operation of NATO trust funds in Ukraine. The Alliance decided to launch five trust funds to support Ukraine instead of the four that had been planned previously, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on December 2nd in Brussels.
“The decision to establish trust funds for Ukraine was adopted at the NATO summit in Wales,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “We agreed to establish four trust funds for the assistance to Ukraine, and all these four funds already work today.”
These trust funds are aimed at strengthening command control, communications and computers, logistics and standardisation, cyber security and retraining of former military personnel, Stoltenberg said.
“We have also recently established a fifth fund to help the wounded soldiers with their rehabilitation,” he said.
“These trust funds are a specific signal of the support of NATO, and they will help Ukraine to make its own armed forces more transparent and efficient,” Stoltenberg added.
Ihor Koziy, a military expert at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Co-operation, said both the NATO and Ukrainian sides should monitor the implementation of these programmes in order to ensure their efficiency.
“Trust funds are a separate issue,” Koziy told SETimes. “This issue should be controlled not only by the country that receives aid but also it should be controlled by donors. Now it is necessary to develop a mechanism for quick and efficient implementation.”
Another step toward improving co-operation with NATO is to change attitudes toward the advisors NATO countries send to Ukraine.
“Documents that regulate co-ordination with foreign advisors are Soviet documents translated into Ukrainian,” Melnyk said.
According to military experts, advisors were able to meet with high officials in the defence ministry once a year, or once every two years. Experts said such an approach should be changed.
“Advisors work with the departments that gather information but not with the departments that deal with the implementation of certain ideas,” Koziy said. “It shouldn’t be like that. Experience shows that advisors should work directly. If, for example, there are questions on the mobilisation, advisors should then work directly with the person who is responsible for mobilisation.”
Military experts noted one more positive step in the Ukraine-NATO partnership that was a topic of discussion in Brussels. The Alliance will help Ukraine form a quick-response special-purpose unit that will be part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“Ukrainian special-purpose units are capable of performing combat tasks,” Koziy said. “The question arises in training, weapons and building training facilities. The issue of weapons and training is very urgent because the previous years all this was destroyed.”
What changes should Ukraine make in order to ensure that NATO’s support is efficiently implemented in the country’s military reform efforts? Share your thoughts in the comments section.