On October 1 President Leonid Kuchma visited the Kyiv-based Center for Rapid Response to Crisis Situations at the Ministry of Defense and the Air Defense Command. This establishment is one of the three emergency management centers currently in Ukraine, the other two being at the Security Service and the Ministry for Emergencies.
The military center was placed on high alert immediately after the US terrorist strikes. One of its tasks is to manage the means and forces while offsetting the consequences of a crisis situation. As the Presidential Administration press service reports, Pres. Kuchma personally spoke over satellite video linkup with division commanders and the commanding officers of the Ukrainian peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, Lebanon, and Sierra Leone. The center also performs the function of controlling Ukrainian peacekeeping units stationed outside abroad.
A separate theme is the Commander-in-Chief’s visit to the Air Defense Command. Ukraine’s Air Defense was also place on standby alert, which involves additional technical means. Yet, by contrast with Russia, where air defense generals announced they were ready to shoot down passenger planes heading for the Kremlin, Ukraine has not yet made such a categorical statement. Upon his arrival Mr. Kuchma acquainted himself with the organization of standby alert and the prospects of forming a new branch of the armed forces to be entrusted with defending the state’s air borders.
It was planned earlier that the new branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine would be formed by 2005 at the earliest. But now Ministry of Defense officials have decided to do this as soon as next year. The theoretical foundations of the new branch have already been laid. Its name has not yet been revealed, but it is most likely to bear the all too familiar abbreviation of AF (Air Force). Now the military are waiting for a presidential decree to this effect.
Should the decree be signed, this will mean the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be put on a three-component basis. A tripartite structure (based on the three environments of military operations: outer space, land, and water) is characteristic of the military setup of most NATO countries and the USA.
