President Viktor Yushchenko believes the time is ripe for the National Security and Defense Council to bring to account certain members of the Cabinet of Ministers for paying little attention to the problems of the Armed Forces and the defensive capacity of Ukraine.
President Viktor Yushchenko, who heads the National Security and Defense Council under the Ukrainian constitution, gave his assessment in his opening word at the meeting of NSDC on Tuesday.
“The army has become a hostage of the political intrigues and speculations. The army does not have proper attention, especially from the government… As long as we fail to turn the head of the prime minister to soldiers, we will have difficulties in discussing the questions of funding, maintenance and development of the Ukrainian army,” President Viktor Yushchenko said.
Yushchenko noted, that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has failed to fulfill her promises concerning the transition to the contractual army, the reduction in conscription, and provision of the army with proper finance and higher salaries to soldiers and sergeants.
Yushchenko emphasized that today’s army has no finance to carry out renewal of equipment and weapon. The number of contractual soldiers continues to shrink.
Yushchenko said the National Security and Defense Council has to give its assessment of the conditions of the Armed Forces and the defensive capacities of Ukraine.
“It is a high time for us to give personal assessment of this process and stop being indifferent observers of how the defensive capacities of the army decline,” said the head of the National Security and Defense Council.
He said Ukraine has enough capacities to improve the situation in the Armed Forces.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Viktor Yushchenko has said he is not intending to sign the national budget for 2010 if the document does not secure enough finance for the Armed Forces.
The Ukrainian president demands that the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada boost funding of the army in 2010.
