Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak stirred skepticism in Ukraine when he told U.S. international broadcaster Voice of America in an interview on Feb. 3 that Ukraine was already 90 percent of the way to adopting NATO standards.
Ukraine’s ambitious plan to reform its military, bringing it into line with the alliance by 2020, was only started in 2016. But while defense spending has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching $6 billion or nearly 6 percent of the gross domestic product, the defense sector remains inefficient and corrupt.
And NATO’s envoys in Ukraine don’t completely share Poltorak’s optimism. Although many changes for the better have already been made, Kyiv still has a long to-do list, and several important milestones have to be passed in 2018 alone.
Moreover, truly successful defense reform doesn’t just mean ticking off changes as they are made.
The transformation requires a fundamental change in the mindset of the Ukrainian military and its embrace of the spirit of Euro-Atlantic principles, NATO officials say.
Ambitious plan
Alexander Vinnikov, the head of the NATO Liaison Office in Ukraine, acknowledges that good work has been done.
“Clearly, over the past three years, ever since the beginning of Russia’s aggression, Ukraine’s defense forces have come a very long way,” Vinnikov told the Kyiv Post during a recent interview. “Their tactical and technical capabilities have increased significantly, and they continue to benefit from training and equipping programs that are provided by several NATO allies.”
Besides, the Defense Ministry has done “laudable work” on practical problems facing the army that required prompt solutions, such as the proper provision of food, medical aid, equipment, uniforms, and logistics, Vinnikov said.
“Last year we recognized that there was progress in many areas of defense reform, including areas like capability-based planning, the implementation of a Unified Medical Command and significant improvement in the training and development of non-commissioned officers,” he said.
Ukraine’s plan to come into full compliance with NATO standards by late 2020 is contained in the Strategic Defense Bulletin, a step-by-step roadmap with a timeline of reforms signed by President Petro Poroshenko in June 2016.
While praising the Ukrainian plan, the alliance points out its drawbacks – particularly in terms of Ukraine’s “moving from designing and planning reforms, to actually implementing them,” Vinnikov said.
“For instance, many of the new departments and units that have been created in the Defense Ministry and the General Staff are not yet fully staffed with properly trained and experienced personnel,” he said.
Ukraine’s defense reforms should be systemic and comprehensive, he added, “so that they can become sustainable in the longer term – and also irreversible.”
Spirit of change
Vinnikov’s opposite number – Vadym Prystaiko, the head of Ukrainian mission to NATO – is even more cautious in his assessments. Speaking on sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Feb. 17, he said Ukraine had only adopted “approximately a quarter” of NATO’s standards.
“There are 150-200 standards alone that deal with, say pilots speaking the same language, identifying friend-or-foe, deploying troops, border-crossing regulations and so on,” the official said, although he stuck to the Kyiv’s official line that Ukraine is on track to achieve full compliance with NATO standards by late 2020.
NATO militaries achieve standardization and interoperability through Standardization Agreements or STANAGs, which each NATO member ratifies and implements. There are around 1,300 STANAGs, covering a bewildering range of areas, from STANAG 2021, on military load classifications for bridges, rafts, and vehicles, to STANAG 4586, which defines standard control interfaces for all NATO-operated unmanned aerial vehicles.
Last year, Ukraine began implementing 167 mostly technical NATO STANAGs, through drawing up 135 national legal acts, regulations and standards.
However, according to NATO representatives, if Ukraine is really serious about achieving the goal it has set itself, simply approving all of the standards is far from enough.
“It is important to understand the difference between adopting a NATO standard and actually applying NATO or Euro-Atlantic security and defense principles,” Vinnikov said. “We’re also speaking about, and mainly about, principles such as the functioning of democratic institutions, effective civilian control over the armed forces, democratic oversight over the security and defense sector, rule of law, good governance, human rights issues, even the market economy.”
“All of that is part of the best practice applied in the Euro-Atlantic countries.”
That’s why electoral reform and fighting corruption should also be high on Ukraine’s NATO to-do list, Vinnikov said.
“It’s important to realize that implementing NATO standards and principles requires a fundamental change in the mindset, and in the way that institutions and act and interact,” Vinnikov said.
“Because without this, merely applying technical standards will not bring the desired result for Ukraine.”
Civilian control
2018 will be a pivotal year for Ukraine’s security and defense sector, with a swathe of key decisions expected.
One will be the approval of a new law on the country’s national security, prepared with help from the NATO Liaison Office, the European Union Advisory Mission, and U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
The draft bill, which is soon to be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, stipulates that Ukraine’s new defense minister, as well as all of his deputies, “shall be appointed from civilian life” starting from Jan. 1, 2019. In addition, top military officers will have to account to parliament for defense expenditure.
Welcoming the pending bill, NATO officials said that establishing civilian control of the Armed Forces and democratic oversight over the whole security sector, as provided by the document, is a “key overarching goal” for Ukraine’s defense reform.
This framework law will be fundamental in designing a new architecture for the entire security and defense sector in Ukraine in line with NATO standards and principles,” Vinnikov said.
However, the latest version of the draft previously approved by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council on Jan. 17 falls short of imposing a five-year cooling-off period after the end of active duty service for a civilian defense minister in Ukraine, as opposed to earlier drafts.
This would allow Poroshenko simply to dismiss Poltorak, who is an army general, from active service, and immediately nominate him as a civilian minister in 2019, meeting NATO requirements to the letter but perhaps not in spirit.
Vinnikov downplayed the changes to the draft that would allow Poltorak to keep his job, however.
“Our own countries use different models. (The cooling off period for a defense minister) exists in the legislation of some NATO allies, but not in that of others.”
“In some countries, there is not even a legal requirement for the minister to be a civilian, but it has been the practice ever since (the founding of NATO). The important thing is to ensure the civilian control and democratic oversight.”
“The model that a country chooses to ensure this principle is up to that country.”
Apart from making the defense minister and his deputies civilians, Ukraine still needs to have a much higher proportion of civilians working in its Defense Ministry. Moreover, parliament has to have a stronger role in overseeing defense spending, Vinnikov added.
No request
But even as Ukraine tries to bring itself up to NATO standards, there’s no talk yet of it joining the alliance itself.
While the country battles Russian military intervention in the east, NATO’s top officials have made it clear Ukraine’s eventual membership prospects hang on another struggle – the internal fight against corruption.
During a recent press conference in Brussels on Feb. 14, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized that the question of Ukraine’s membership would depend on the country making progress in its reforms.
Moreover, as NATO officials explain, even if the path to join NATO is already being laid in Ukraine’s national legislation, the alliance still has to receive a formal written request from Kyiv.
Barbora Maronkova, the director of the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Kyiv, underlined that overtures on membership have to come from Kyiv, not the alliance.
“I’d just give you a very basic example: I want to learn how to play golf, but it doesn’t mean that a golf course will come and make me a member,” Maronkova said. “I have to apply to become a member.”
Nonetheless, “NATO’s open-door policy remains valid. Only last year we admitted Montenegro as the latest member. So there is an open-door policy, and then it’s ultimately a consensus agreement among the 29 allies and the country wishing to join.”
