With few exceptions, 2020 has been a year of doom and gloom for Ukraine’s defense sector. And previous years haven’t set the bar very high.
Wherever you look, things aren’t going well.
The Western-style civilian leadership was booted from the Ministry of Defense. There’s a stalemate in the Minsk peace talks. And Soviet-style bureaucracy is again flourishing. Defense reforms appear stagnant. Even Ukraine’s military buildup — a constant since 2014 — is slowing down.
And all this has little to do with the COVID‑19 pandemic. Rather, the government has simply failed to advance the country’s defense this year.
Procurement failed?
After a brief honeymoon, President Volodymyr Zelensky and defense reform went their separate ways in early 2020.
On March 4, the president sacked Andriy Zahorodniuk, the country’s first truly Western-style civilian defense minister. Despite having vast experience in business management, he lasted just six months in office.
He was replaced by 65-year-old Andriy Taran, a retired lieutenant general and a representative of the old military bureaucracy.
The result came quickly. As one of his first decisions, Taran revoked the Armed Forces reform plan long before its completion. He didn’t propose a new one. He also dismissed the Project Office of Reforms, an association of civilian specialists advising the ministry on key improvements for the military. Taran has had almost no interaction with the press, and the Defense Ministry’s public communications rapidly degraded.
Moreover, during the year, the ministry failed to follow the country’s defense procurement plan.
Starting in September, numerous people in the media and expert community sounded the alarm that most of the Hr 25.8 billion ($900 million) allocated for military production in 2020 had not been spent yet.
The ministry also had not signed off on numerous contracts on key weapons and equipment for the Armed Forces, primarily heavy artillery pieces and the newest Neptune cruise missiles.
The situation grew so desperate that even Oleksiy Danilov, deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, admitted on Nov. 12 that the defense procurement plan was being fulfilled “at an unacceptably slow pace.”
Additionally, in the first nine months of 2020, 40.8% of the defense ministry’s 559 tender bids — valued collectively at Hr 15.2 billion ($530 million) — failed, mostly because the ministry did not provide adequate information about the fuel, clothing, food and transportation services it was trying to procure.
In July, the Verkhovna Rada passed a long-awaited bill on a new, much more transparent defense procurement system. But, as of December, the defense ministry failed to pass all the necessary subordinate acts for the law to enter force in 2021. Instead, the new military procurement launch was postponed by another year.
Taran’s ministry has offered little in its own defense — only saying on Dec. 10 that the contracting plan for 2020 had been completed by 94%.
Nonetheless, more and more voices in the industry are calling for Taran’s dismissal.
Adding to their dissatisfaction is the fact, in the 2021 budget, the defense ministry was only allocated Hr 117 billion ($4.2 billion), which merely equals the amount of funds it had in 2020 — but is actually a spending cut, given that inflation is expected to be 7.5% next year.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (L) speaks with Defense Minister Andriy Taran (R) during a special government meeting with the participation of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at Unit.City innovative park on March 13, 2020. (Volodymyr Petrov)
UkrOboronProm troubles
As if Ukraine’s defense production industry hasn’t had enough centralized bureaucratic control, in July the government introduced a brand new Ministry for Strategic Industries headed by Oleh Uruskiy.
The new ministry, despite still having almost no personnel and no legislative base, is meant to assume control of the country’s key industries, including defense production. It almost immediately clashed with the pro-reform management team at UkrOboronProm, the country’s defense production giant long known for endemic corruption.
After months of rumors of fierce behind-the-scenes struggle, the UkrOboronProm reform team created by former economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius directly accused Uruskiy of hog-tying the organization’s transformation into a modern, corporatized arms production holding company.
Yuriy Husyev, UkrOboronProm’s new director-general appointed on Dec. 3, claimed to be on the same page as Uruskiy. Nonetheless, he vowed to complete the reform and eliminate UkrOboronProm as a single entity by June 2021.
According to the plan, all of Ukraine’s military-grade production will be divided into several specialized clusters united into a new holding company called “Defense Systems of Ukraine.”
Civilian strategic production, namely aircraft and space enterprises, are to be handed over to Uruskiy’s super-ministry as a new giant holding company called “Aerospace Systems of Ukraine.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky kneels next to the graves of Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle on the front line of the war in the Donbas on the Armed Forces Day on Dec. 6, 2020. (Presidential Press Service)
Deadlock in war
Meanwhile, the war in the Donbas drags on with no end in sight, despite optimistic peace initiatives pushed by Zelensky.
At least 49 Ukrainian troops were killed in action along the 420-kilometer front line in 2020.
Notably, this year, Ukraine finally saw the first month with no confirmed, combat-related fatalities since 2014: In August, the Ukrainian military-police contingent deployed to the war zone reported not a single soldier killed by the enemy.
In 2020, the Zelensky administration turned “the longest ceasefire ever,” which began on July 27, into a sacred cow. But it’s far from perfect.
At least four soldiers have been killed in action since then. Meanwhile, the presidential administration has tried its best to downplay Russia’s role and the intensity of hostilities in Donbas in the public realm.
The non-combat death toll in Ukraine’s 35,000-strong military-police contingent in the war zone remained as high as ever. According to Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, 44 Ukrainian service members died in Donbas between March and October alone.
Some have questioned whether certain battle fatalities may get reported as non-combat to protect the “longest ceasefire” narrative. Currently, there is no evidence of it.
Thankfully, the COVID‑19 pandemic has not undermined Ukraine’s defense on the front line. There has not been mass disease spread among combat units. Nonetheless, as of Dec. 23, the armed forces have registered over 10,000 cases and 36 deaths, mostly among civilian employees.
Chaos in peace
The year 2020 was full of absurd scandals in Ukraine’s peace talks with Russia in Minsk.
The wildest moment was when 88-year-old Vitold Fokin, Ukraine’s former prime minister, was appointed deputy head of Ukraine’s delegation to the talks.
Fokin near immediately made overtly pro-Russian statements, including that there had been “no evidence of a war between Russia and Ukraine.” They were so outrageous that even Andriy Yermak, who had masterminded this appointment, had to denounce Fokin and endorse his subsequent dismissal.
The only tangible result of the talks in 2020 was the April prisoner swap, in which 20 Ukrainians were freed in exchange for 14 demanded by Russian-backed militants.
Ukraine’s Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29 escorts a U.S. Air Force’s Boeing B-52H Stratofortress bomber in the sky over Ukraine on Sept. 4, 2020. (Ukraine's Air Force)
Help from allies
The most positive moments of 2020 for Ukraine’s defense came from its Western partners.
Despite U. S. President Donald Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to withhold nearly $391 million in aid for Ukraine in 2019, this year Kyiv received $510.5 million for military needs — an all-time record.
Moreover, Ukraine will receive three more Island-class patrol boats from the U. S. Coast Guard in the near future. And the U.S. government will allocate nearly $600 million to produce 16 brand new Mark VI vessels for Ukraine’s weak and fragile navy, which must deter Russia in the Black and Azov seas.
London’s role is growing, too. It is now ready to lend nearly $1.6 billion to produce Barzan-class vessels and naval infrastructure for Ukraine.
And certain moments in 2020 felt like Christmas came early for Ukraine’s defenses. For the first time since 1994, legendary U. S. Air Force strategic Boeing B‑52 Stratofortress bombers visited the Ukrainian skies accompanied by Ukrainian jets to observe Russian military activity in the region.
Ukraine also had one of its largest military maneuvers with its Western allies, Combined Endeavor 2020, which saw the brightest moment of the year in defense: the joint deployment of over 200 British and Ukrainian airborne troops on Sept. 18, which was the British Army’s biggest airdrop in 20 years.
Most importantly, against the odds, the Ukrainian Armed Forces remain the country’s most trusted public institute after over 6 years of Russia’s war.
According to a poll published by the Razumkov Center on Nov. 10, over 66% of Ukrainians support and appreciate the military.
