Regardless of whether the war begins or not - Lysenko said - the Ukrainian army must be ready for any situation. Our first line is ready and we have strengthened our defenses.
On Sunday, Lysenko said that Russian troops are preparing for an offensive.
The real strength of the Ukrainian army
The Ukrainian army is ready for war, but its capabilities are limited.
According to official estimates, the Kiev government has around 130 thousand soldiers ready for battle. Russia has an army of 700 thousand soldiers and 2,5 million reservists.
Not only is the Ukrainian army of modest size, it also has a bad reputation, while troops are ill-equipped and poorly educated.
The last form of conscription ended in the autumn of 2013. Since the current year the Ukrainian army is composed entirely of professional soldiers.
To equip the army would need substantial funds that Kiev never had. To solve the problems it was thought well to reduce the army (in the 1991 it counted 800 thousand men) and to end the conscription.
In 2013, Ukraine has invested 1,79 billion dollars in military spending, although it should have invested at least three times as much. Russia, on the other hand, has invested 52 billion dollars for its armed forces.
The inefficiency of the Ukrainian army then, has been amply demonstrated. In the 2000, a rocket launched during an exercise hit a house near Kiev. In the 2001, a surface-to-air missile launched during a test to hit a drone destroyed a Russian passenger plane on the Black Sea, killing everyone on board. In the 2002, during an aerial demonstration, an air force aircraft crashed into the crowd.
Most of Ukraine's military equipment dates back to the Soviet period (read previous article).
The aeronautics has a handful of Soviet-era fighter planes, while pilots' training is purely theoretical. Finally, planes have half the fuel needed to defend airspace.
Finally, the Kiev Navy is a disaster with a couple of operational ships. Russia's Black Sea fleet, on the other hand, is the most powerful in the region and continues to receive submarines.
When Ukraine was the third nuclear power in the world
When the USSR collapsed in the 1991, the atomic arsenal was divided among the former Soviet republics who declared their independence. On a "single night" Ukraine became the third atomic power in the world, immediately after the United States and Russia, acquiring around 150 missiles with nuclear warhead (even though the power to throw weapons remained in Moscow's hands).
The country, however, did not have enough money to keep the nuclear warheads efficient and, under Russian and Western pressure, it had to surrender its weapons. Intercontinental ballistic missiles that threatened the West during the Cold War, such as the "SS-18 Satan" (the main instrument of the Kremlin's deterrent policy), were destroyed. Supersonic bombers, like the Tupolev-160, were demolished or handed over to Russia.
In return, Ukraine has received aid and economic guarantees from four nuclear powers, including Russia.
The army finally. Unlike their Russian counterparts, Ukrainian forces have little fighting experience. The individual units participated in peace missions in the Balkans and in Africa. There have also been joint exercises with NATO.
Russian troops, on the other hand, in recent years have been engaged in Chechnya and Georgia.
Franco Iacch
(photo: MoD Ukraine / repertoire)
