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    Weapons Are Not The Answers To Ukraine's Military Woes

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    The Wilson Center
    Ukraine’s military, recently defeated in its Anti-Terrorist Operation against separatists in the east, must address massive materiel, training, and leadership deficiencies. Having suffered years of budgetary and administrative neglect, its armed forces and defense industrial complex cannot hope to fight Russia in their current state. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine should focus in the short term on supplies to sustain its troops over the winter and in the medium term on support for comprehensive military reform, but providing American weapons would engender a proxy war with Russia without really improving Ukraine’s combat capability.

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    Weapons Are Not The Answers To Ukraine's Military Woes

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    The Wilson Center
    2K views4 pages
    Ukraine’s military, recently defeated in its Anti-Terrorist Operation against separatists in the east, must address massive materiel, training, and leadership deficiencies. Having suffered years of budgetary and administrative neglect, its armed forces and defense industrial complex cannot hope to fight Russia in their current state. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine should focus in the short term on supplies to sustain its troops over the winter and in the medium term on support for comprehensive military reform, but providing American weapons would engender a proxy war with Russia without really improving Ukraine’s combat capability.

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    Weapons Are Not the Answers to Ukraine's Military Woes

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    Ukraine’s military, recently defeated in its Anti-Terrorist Operation against separatists in the east, must address massive materiel, training, and leadership deficiencies. Having suffered years of budgetary and administrative neglect, its armed forces and defense industrial complex cannot hope to fight Russia in their current state. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine should focus in the short term on supplies to sustain its troops over the winter and in the medium term on support for comprehensive military reform, but providing American weapons would engender a proxy war with Russia without really improving Ukraine’s combat capability.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    2K views4 pages

    Weapons Are Not The Answers To Ukraine's Military Woes

    Uploaded by

    The Wilson Center
    Ukraine’s military, recently defeated in its Anti-Terrorist Operation against separatists in the east, must address massive materiel, training, and leadership deficiencies. Having suffered years of budgetary and administrative neglect, its armed forces and defense industrial complex cannot hope to fight Russia in their current state. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine should focus in the short term on supplies to sustain its troops over the winter and in the medium term on support for comprehensive military reform, but providing American weapons would engender a proxy war with Russia without really improving Ukraine’s combat capability.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Ukraine's military has suffered from years of budgetary and administrative neglect and is ill-equipped and poorly trained to fight Russia. The U.S. should focus assistance on basic supplies and reform rather than weapons.

    Ukraine's military lacks leadership, reliable equipment, intelligence, logistics, and supplies to sustain battle due to years of budget cuts and neglect of defense.

    The article recommends the U.S. focus on basic supplies to support Ukrainian forces through winter and limit visible involvement in military aspects while demonstrating diplomatic support.

    Wilson Briefs l October 2014

    Photo by Sergey Kamshylin - Shutterstock.com


    Frozen in place
    Despite the ceasere on September 5, 2014, separatists in Ukraine continue to make gains
    against the Ukrainian army around Donetsk airport. After suffering signicant defeats in late
    August and early September, Ukraine is not in a position to reclaim the separatist regions in
    2014, and cannot defeat Russian forces in a conventional battle.
    The only reason that Russia has not taken more territory is that it did not want tocertainly
    not in an overt conventional war. Russias public support could weaken with growing
    casualties, and Russia has confronted increasing costs from Western sanctions. Moscow has
    Weapons Are Not the Answer
    to Ukraines Military Woes
    by Michael Kofman
    Ukraines military, recently defeated in its Anti-Terrorist Operation against
    separatists in the east, must address massive materiel, training, and
    leadership deciencies. Having suffered years of budgetary and administrative
    neglect, its armed forces and defense industrial complex cannot hope to ght
    Russia in their current state. U.S. security assistance to Ukraine should focus
    in the short term on supplies to sustain its troops over the winter and in the
    medium term on support for comprehensive military reform, but providing
    American weapons would engender a proxy war with Russia without really
    improving Ukraines combat capability.
    SUMMARY
    WILSON BRIEFS 2
    0
    5000
    10000
    15000
    20000
    25000
    30000
    35000
    40000
    Ukrainian Army Ukrainian Volunteers Separatist Forces Russian Army
    no interest in further conquests now that it has taken Crimea and established a separatist
    territory in eastern Ukraine. More land delivers little additional benet, but Russia will keep its
    military deployed to prevent the separatists from losing.
    Winter weather will soon prohibit offensive operations, and the conict will freeze into an
    uneasy truce along established lines of control.
    Ukraines military
    Ukraines military has spirit, manpower, and artillery, but lacks the leadership, reliable
    equipment, intelligence, logistics, and supplies to sustain the battle.
    On paper, there are 130,000 military personnel. The most motivated troops likely are not
    professional soldiers, but some three dozen volunteer battalions numbering around 7,000.
    Following the March 2014 annexation of Crimea, Ukraine called up reserves, conducted
    mobilization drives, and reinstated conscription, but could not properly support or equip even
    a fraction of the men on the books and so added nothing to its actual combat capability.
    In launching the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Ukraine still had an impressive arsenal, but fell short
    in reliability and tactics. The serviceable part of the air force and helicopter eet sustained
    considerable losses, in part because pilots had little recent ight training and because aircraft
    were sent headlong into enemy air defense. A sizeable armored force, with some of the
    best tanks from the former Soviet Union, was used to little effect and lost probably a quarter
    of its equipment. Consequently, the operation has depended largely on artillery, including
    Deployed in the Donetsk Area
    In Combat During September
    Estimates of the disposition of forces
    WILSON BRIEFS 3
    inaccurate rockets often used in and near populated areas. Ukraines infantry has liberated
    some towns, but mostly because separatists abandoned them.
    The popular narrative among regional experts is that corruption is to blame for the state of
    Ukraines military, but the reality is that two decades of neglect have left it in ruinous shape.
    Defense was starved because the country experienced persistent economic woes but faced
    no credible conventional threats. Of the consistently inadequate defense budget, more than
    80 percent went for upkeep and personnel costs, leaving paltry amounts for training and
    equipment. Even the basicsrations, uniforms, tents, and body armorwere in short supply.
    Ukraines defense industry survived through exports alone, selling off most of the best
    hardware inherited from the Soviet Union. It has been subsisting on sales of armor and
    aircraft upgrades to other countries, and extensive defense cooperation with Russia and
    China. Production capacity is low and of mixed quality; it is unclear what Ukraine can produce
    indigenously without Russian components and technology.
    Ukraines needs
    Now on the defensive, Ukraines only hope is to make further separatist gains costly. It should
    be commended for its willingness to defend its territory, but its army needs a complete
    overhaul to become a successful ghting force. Even then, it could not win against Russia.
    Ukraine has vast amounts of hardware and some of the best repair and modernization
    facilities in the former Soviet Union. In time, it can repair, refurbish, and replace both its stocks
    and some of its losses. Ammunition and parts can be acquired from friendly former Warsaw
    Pact countries. What Ukraine lacks is not patrol boats, counter-battery radars, or antitank
    weapons, but funding, training, and military reform.
    U.S. assistance
    Ukraines military cannot absorb Western weapons or use them effectively, and the volunteer
    battalionsoften loosely subordinate to the government and ideologically incompatible with
    each othermight use them irresponsibly. Moreover, introduction of American weapons
    could engender a proxy war with Russia and tempt Ukraines elites to pursue military
    solutions, provoking Moscow with disastrous consequences.
    U.S. security assistance efforts, however, do not seem to recognize these truths. President
    Obama has committed $116 million in equipment and training, and the Senate has authorized
    another $350 million in various defense articles and weapons. These articles include basic
    supplies that Ukraine desperately needs, like radios, rations, uniforms, and body armor, but
    also high-tech items like night vision goggles dubiously connected to war efforts.
    Balance of Forces
    Ukrainian Army 130,000 personnel
    Ukrainian Volunteers 7,000 personnel
    Russian Army 700,000 personnel
    Separatist Forces 10,000-12,000 personnel
    WILSON BRIEFS 4
    The best answers to this conict are a political solution between Kyiv and Moscow and
    a long-term realignment of relations between Russia and the West. What Ukraine needs
    most is a considered policy that does not pander to its elites political needs or its publics
    understandable emotions.

    The United States should focus on providing basic necessities to support Ukrainian
    forces through the winter, and work with allies from former Warsaw Pact countries to
    replenish Ukraines military hardware.

    U.S. policymakers should refrain from supplying weapons and limit visible U.S.
    involvement in the conicts military aspects.

    Diplomatically, the United States should demonstrate its support without leading
    Ukraines leaders to believe that assistance will let them pursue a military solution
    rather than a political one.

    Overall, U.S. efforts should create a sustainable defense, rather than enable Ukraine to
    reacquire lost territory.
    The Wilson Center
    @TheWilsonCenter
    facebook.com/WoodrowWilsonCenter
    www.wilsoncenter.org
    Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
    One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
    1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
    Washington, DC 20004-3027
    Michael Kofman
    Public Policy Scholar
    [email protected]
    Kofman is a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center whose reseach centers on security
    issues in the former Soviet Union, focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe. He has been a
    program manager and subject matter expert at National Defense University, advising senior
    military and government ofcials on Russia/Eurasia and Pakistan.
    The opinions expressed in this article are soley those of the author.

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