On Wednesday President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko spoke at the Armed Forces General Staff conference dedicated to the research and the practical results of the command-staff exercise “Decisive Response 2015.” He outlined the major circumstances the country was facing. The president asserted the need to reform the entire defense and security complex in accordance with the decisions of the NSDC. In conditions of the war the head of state asked to improve army logistics and supply chain in the ATO zone. Being well aware of the accumulation of weapons and regular violations of the ceasefire by the enemy, this is an extremely important aspect of defending against a possible open attack on behalf of Russian bandits. Regarding the cooperation with Western partners, Poroshenko noted that it had been strengthened not delving too much into details.
However, there have been several critical reports recently on the existing process of cooperation between Ukraine’s General Staff and NATO. More precisely it concerns the creation of special operations forces, whose role in the current war is one of the most important. In particular such units were used by Putin in the first phase of our territories’ occupation. And that is why the formation of the special operations forces in Ukraine is essential not only for defense, but also for the prospect of liberation in terms of modern warfare.
Yurii Butusov, journalist, wrote on his Facebook page about his sharp dissatisfaction with the stance of special operations forces’ creation. “In September 2015, NATO sent two of their special operations forces experts to Kyiv. Past week, the experts published a report of the NATO mission in Ukraine – no results in two months,” asserted Butusov. “NATO has repeatedly reported on the failure of the NATO cooperation mission to the presidential administration directly, because any contacts with the leadership of the General Staff had proved fruitless.”
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
Butusov’s reaction to the situation is explained by his desire to attract an appropriate resonance and attention to the problem. On the same day Iryna Fryz, MP from the Poroshenko Bloc (former press secretary of Petro Poroshenko prior to his inauguration as the president) has reacted just abruptly to the news about the cooperation of the General Staff and NATO. She stated that the General Staff of Ukraine had been refusing contacts with NATO and was disrupting Ukraine’s cooperation with the Alliance. Fryz said that the trainings planned in Khmelnytsky were relocated to Yavoriv polygon without any explanation. “There are terrible rumors on the reasons for that relocation, which I do not want to believe,” wrote the MP, not specifying what kind of rumors she was speaking of.
Fryz also said that at the moment she was in the George C. Marshall center and once again she heard questions from American partners who claimed that they were being ignored by the Ukrainian General Staff. According to the partners, their work had been “virtually blocked” and the management of special operations was under pressure with threats of dismissal.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces was not able to respond to the criticism on the same day, and published its reply the next morning, denying the allegations on the failure of the joint special operations forces creation with NATO. In the General Staff, according to the official commentary, there is a dedicated team focused on cooperation with NATO. The concept of special operations forces has finished its development and is now at the stage of peer review, including NATO advisers as experts. At the same time representatives of the General Staff refer to the fact that special operations forces is a closed structure in Armed Forces, thus any information on its creation and operation should not be made available to the public.
