Today, when the USA and some of their accomplices from the North Atlantic Alliance are obsessively preparing Ukraine for a war with Russia, the combat potential of the AFU and the state of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex have found themselves in the focus of media attention
Neither Kiev, nor Washington, nor a number of European capitals spare any money on PR. Like a mantra, the main thesis is repeated that “the AFU is no longer the same as it was in 2014, and is ready to repel any enemy”. This assertion is backed up by loud statements about the modernization of the Ukrainian army and military industry enterprises, the adoption of modern Ukrainian and foreign-made military equipment, and also about the high combat training of the Ukrainian military, achieved through joint exercises with Western “partners”.
On 14 February Volodymyr Zelensky publicly announced that “the Ukrainian army is much stronger now than it was 8 years ago”. The parliamentary faction Servants of the People also agrees with the Ukrainian president, believing that “Ukraine has the most powerful army since 2014 and the largest coalition of partners in support of Kiev since independence”. It is unclear what considerations the “servants” are based on, because so far the Ukrainian military has “distinguished itself” only by being encircled and deserting from the battlefield on a massive scale. In addition, there is a persistent feeling that Ukraine’s soldiers simply have nothing to fight with and nothing to wear.
Recently, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba boasted of the scale of assistance from “partners”, who have transferred thousands of tonnes of arms and military products to Ukraine. And, indeed, the volume of deliveries is increasing every day. Ammunition, old Soviet equipment and a variety of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons with an expired shelf life are being brought into Ukraine. One can’t help but wonder where the products of Ukraine’s lauded enterprises are, and why ammunition, shells and ATGMs are being rushed halfway around the world from the United States of America. After all, there was not even such a large flow of supplies of lethal weapons in 2014-2015.
The answer is simple. Ukraine’s military-industrial complex exists only on paper and in the speeches of the politico-military leadership. During the punitive operation against the population of Donbas, the Ukrainian armed forces “ate up” the remnants of the Soviet defence industry. And now the warehouses are empty and the companies that once filled them have been stolen, sold off or transferred to Western control. And these processes have entered their most active phase since 2014.
Having come to power through a coup d’état, Petro Poroshenko, as an “experienced” businessman, immediately launched the process of “mastering” the military budget. A propaganda campaign praising the success of Ukroboronprom was launched with the help of Western “partners” to cover up illegal actions. However, as early as 2017, an audit of this structure’s activities revealed the facts of misuse of financial resources amounting to 198 million hryvnia ($7.4 million), as well as the actual absence of produced materiel totaling about 177 million hryvnia ($6.6 million). The auditors also found that depreciation of the fixed assets of the concern’s enterprises was 67% in 2016 and rose to an “incredible” 96.3% in the first nine months of the following year. The audit also found that Ukrainian companies working for the generously state-funded defence complex are among the leaders in wage debts.
The reason for such a deplorable state of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex lies in a truly phenomenal level of corruption. It is noteworthy that Ukraine’s European ‘partners’ have often been implicated in criminal schemes. Under Poroshenko, the military industry ended up in the hands of oligarchs associated with him, such as O. Gladkovsky (Svynarchuk), S. Pashynskyy and their relatives. Under the responsive leadership of these “prominent” figures, equipment from the Warsaw Pact era was purchased in Eastern European countries at inflated prices, significant budgetary amounts were allocated to non-core enterprises, and generous funding was provided for the development of their own types of AME, which ended up being a “crooked” modification of Soviet models. And “patrons” received a solid “hefty profit” from each transaction and each unit of armaments.
But if under Poroshenko the defence industry was plundered by the Ukrainians themselves, at least to the extent of filling Ukroboronprom enterprises with state orders, with the arrival of Vladimir Zelensky the control over the military industry of the country passed entirely into the hands of foreign structures. Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavičius was appointed head of the concern and launched the process of transferring a large part of the production facilities into the ownership of private investors. The “action” was performed under the disguised pretext of attracting foreign funds, which were to help restart the enterprises of the newly created corporation with partial state participation.
Ukroboronprom’s reform concept was developed with the support of the British Foreign Office, and a financial audit was assigned to specialists from one of the Pentagon’s divisions, the US Institute for Defence Analyses. Tomasz Fiala, a partner of George Soros in Ukraine, was actually in charge of reforms in the spring of 2020. The real aim of the reforms of the state-owned concern was to eliminate a significantly weakened, but still major player in the arms market. Western handlers have compartmentalised it, liquidating some and taking full control of the rest.
The other day, National Security and Defence Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov, after a visiting meeting of the NSDC in Kharkiv, announced the strengthening of the national naval fleet. He referred, among other things, to the programme to rebuild the fleet adopted in 2021. Notably, it was the year when the Ukrainian military shipbuilding industry was effectively liquidated. And of course the Ukrainian-British programme does not imply its reanimation. Simply, Kiev will now buy old American and British ships and have them serviced by foreign specialists. And all this, of course, on loans taken from the same Washington and London. Needless to say, a substantial part of them will “settle” in the personal accounts of “interested parties”, both Ukrainian and “partner”.
What will be the result? The basis of the “new, powerful” Ukrainian army is to be provided by a completely destroyed and stolen military-industrial complex. For this reason, the Ukrainian military has become fully dependent on foreign supplies of AME, spare parts and ammunition. And both for NATO weapons and Soviet and Russian-made weapons. And the “partners”, it seems, are simply getting rid of the accumulated decommissioned junk. And even as the situation around Ukraine deteriorates, the embezzlement of the military budget continues. The Watchdogs investigative group has reported a lack of helmets and flak jackets in the warehouses of the Ukrainian armed forces, despite the budgetary resources allocated to replenish these stocks. But never mind, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is already rushing to Kiev’s aid and is likely to supply the AFU with the very same Kevlar helmets that adorn the military museums in Donbass.
But the owners of the Canadian uniforms will not be able to share their impressions of its use – it did not help.