The Order of Battle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: A
Key Component in European Security
Franklin Holcomb and the ISW Russia/Ukraine Team
The United States and its partners can improve
regional security and stability in Eastern Europe by supporting the
modernization and reform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine more aggressively.
Ukraine has suffered from consistent Russian military aggression since Russia
occupied the Crimean Peninsula and militarily intervened in the eastern
Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in 2014. The overall unpreparedness of
the Ukrainian military and its inability to match the capabilities of Russian
forces allowed Russian and Russian proxy forces to gain a foothold in eastern
Ukraine from which they continue to destabilize the entire country. The
Ukrainian armed forces have been partially restructured and strengthened in the
face of this constant pressure, enough to stabilize the front lines for a
time. They require significantly more support of all varieties, however,
if they are to stop the advance of Russia and its proxies permanently, to say
nothing of reversing the armed occupation of Ukrainian territory.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to fight Russian
troops and proxy forces operating in Ukraine in a war that has claimed
approximately 10,000 lives. Ukraine has engaged in an ambitious military
reform program to modernize its armed forces and meet standards required for
NATO accession by 2020. These reform efforts have seen important successes in
recent years, but the Ukrainian military remains vulnerable to conventional and
unconventional warfare. U.S. General John Abizaid (former Commander of U.S.
Central Command), U.K. General Nick Parker (former Commander of Britain’s Land
Forces), and other western military leaders are in Ukraine to support the
Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s efforts to restructure itself and reform its
forces.The U.S., NATO, and individual western states can support these reform
efforts and shape the Ukrainian military into a force capable of protecting
Ukrainian sovereignty and becoming a key player in Eastern European
security.The effectiveness of Ukraine’s land forces has increased due to
ongoing reform efforts and two years of combat experience. These forces still
suffer from a lack of modern equipment and from an incompletely reformed
organizational structure. Ukrainian front-line soldiers have learned much from
the protracted conflict and now outmatch separatist forces operating in eastern
Ukraine. Ukraine has made progress in overcoming the low morale and poor
discipline that confronted the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command in the early
stages of the conflict. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that
conscripts would no longer serve at the front line on November 2, for
example. This step is critical in order to improve the effectiveness of
Ukraine’s forces in the field and create a more professional army.
Ukrainian forces nevertheless lack experience in
counter-insurgency operations, a lacuna which will become an increasingly
exploitable vulnerability if they regain control of separatist territory in
eastern Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are in the midst of a transition
from the Soviet structure on which they were based and remain
inefficiently-organized. This cumbersome, inefficient, and brittle organization
left Ukrainian front line units vulnerable to the rapid advance of Russian and
Russian proxy forces throughout the conflict, leading to multiple serious
defeats. Ukrainian front-line troops also lack standardized modern
weaponry. Ukraine’s defense sector remains highly productive, but the Armed
Forces of Ukraine does not have the modern weaponry necessary to allow them to
counter Russian military intervention. Russian and pro-Russian forces in
eastern Ukraine continue to use heavy armor and electronic-warfare systems that
Ukraine has struggled to counter, leading to some of their most serious defeats
in the conflict. Ukrainian forces remain highly vulnerable to conventional
military forces as long as they lack the means to counter massed heavy armored
formations. Ukrainian Ground Forces will be unable to provide a true deterrent
to offensive action by regional aggressors until these problems are addressed.
The Ukrainian Air Force plays a key role in protecting
Ukrainian sovereignty but faces capability gaps that undermine its ability to
support Ukrainian ground forces in combat or consistently assert sovereignty over
Ukrainian airspace. At the outset of the conflict in 2014, the underfunded
Ukrainian Air Force used Soviet equipment and was not prepared for major combat
operations. It nevertheless played a decisive role in supporting Ukrainian
ground forces in early stages of the conflict. The years of neglect took
their toll, and Ukraine’s air forces suffered heavy losses during the initial
four months of intensive air operations, losing 18 aircraft and helicopters,
mostly to man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) and heavier anti-aircraft
installations. Ukraine ceded its right to conduct air operations in the
conflict zone in eastern Ukraine on September 19, 2014 in an effort to
deescalate the conflict, and the Ukrainian Air Force has not operated against
hostile targets since. The Ukrainian Air Force’s high vulnerability to even
limited deployments of Russian anti-air systems raises serious concerns about
its ability to fight against a conventional combined arms force. Ukraine and
its western partners should prioritize supporting the refurbishment of the
Ukrainian Air Force in order to allow the Ukrainian Air Force to operate in its
own airspace.
The Ukrainian Navy was nearly destroyed by the Russian
occupation of the Crimean peninsula and has struggled to reform itself in order
to be a force capable of asserting Ukrainian sovereignty. Multiple high-profile
defections during the initial stages of the Russian occupation of Crimea
weakened the leadership of the Ukrainian navy, which proceeded to lose at least
51 ships, the majority of which were captured by Russia. The current
flagship of the Ukrainian Navy, the frigate Hetman
Sahaydachniy, along with several patrol boats and cutters, are the only
combat-ready vessels available to the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of September
2016.
Ukraine’s loss of its primary naval facilities in
Crimea remains the largest hurdle to the reconstitution of the Ukrainian Navy.
Ukrainian Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak reported on June 28, 2016 that
Ukraine had allocated $100 million to construct a new naval base in Odessa to
serve as the headquarters for the Ukrainian Navy as well as plans to repair and
modernize Ukraine’s remaining vessels. Even when this expansion has been
completed and these reforms implemented, Ukraine’s navy would likely face
extreme difficulty protecting its key port cities of Odessa and Mariupol
against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The Ukrainian Navy is currently the weakest navy in
the Black Sea region. It is weaker than the Russian Black Sea Fleet as well as
the navies of NATO members Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, though is slightly
stronger than the Georgian Coast Guard. It is, and likely will remain in
coming years, incapable of asserting Ukrainian sovereignty around the occupied
Crimean peninsula or over Ukrainian resource rights on the Black Sea should
Russian forces in the region seek to prevent it from doing so. The U.S. has
pledged $500 million to support the reformation of the Ukrainian Navy, $30
million of which was delivered in 2016.The reconstruction of the Ukrainian Navy
will take time, particularly so long as Ukraine is denied access to its bases
in Crimea, and will require continued focus from both Ukraine and its partners
if the Ukrainian Navy is to be able to defend Ukraine’s coast and waters.
Ukrainian Special Forces play a key role in countering
conventional and unconventional threats to Ukrainian sovereignty, and the
effort to reform them has had great success. Much of Russia’s aggressive action
in Crimea, Donbas, and elsewhere in Ukraine relied on small groups of special
operators or light infantry who infiltrated Ukrainian territory, caused chaos,
seized key terrain, and thereby undermined the morale and effectiveness of
Ukrainian units ahead of the main body of pro-Russia forces. Ukrainian forces’
initial inability to counter this type of warfare demonstrated the need for a
highly-motivated, well-trained special operations force to counter Russian
infiltration, reconnaissance, and sabotage teams.Ukraine has therefore
prioritized reforming the structure and practices of its special operations
forces with support from U.S. and NATO. These reforms, intended to streamline the command
structure of Ukrainian special operations units, will play a critical role in
Ukrainian efforts to create armed forces capable of protecting Ukrainian
sovereignty. President Poroshenko signed a law on July 26, 2016 officially
establishing the separate Special Operations Command in the Ukrainian armed
forces. Poroshenko noted that “in 2014 special operations forces had nothing
except morale” and praised the necessary efforts to reform Ukraine’s special
operations capabilities. Ukraine’s Special Operations Command is still
nascent, however, and Ukrainian special operations forces have yet to become a
fully mature force.
Ukraine has prioritized obtaining NATO assistance in
reforming and retraining its armed forces since 2014. Ukraine and NATO’s
partnership has existed since Ukraine declared its
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and improved significantly in recent
years. Ukraine expanded its efforts to train with NATO in order to support
its armed forces’ initiatives to improve their overall readiness, modernize
their training and tactics, support structural reform, and improve
interoperability with NATO forces. These ongoing efforts included expanded
participation in large-scale NATO exercises, such as Agile Spirit 2015 in
Georgia, Sea Breeze 2016 in the Black Sea, Flaming Thunder 2016 in Lithuania and Rapid Trident
2016 in Ukraine. These exercises allow members of Ukraine’s armed
services to share best practices across disciplines with their counterparts in
NATO. These exercises also give Ukrainian soldiers and officers the
opportunity to become more accustomed to Western military practices, on which they
are basing many of their reforms. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have shown a
strong desire to expand interoperability with western military structures and
improve military relationships with NATO in order to counter and deter further
Russian aggression.
Ukraine has also made efforts to develop military
relationships with individual NATO member states in order to expand its network
of partners who support ongoing reform efforts. Since 2014, Ukraine has
conducted exercises with many western countries including Poland, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, Turkey,
and the UK. Ukrainian forces joined a joint Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade in
September 2014 and have since proposed a joint military brigade with Bulgaria
and Romania. These multilateral partnerships, combined with ongoing NATO
efforts to improve the logistics and standardization of the Ukrainian
armed forces, constitute a concerted investment in Ukrainian security by both
NATO and Ukraine. The continuation and expansion of these efforts will
build on the progress Ukraine has made in reforming its armed forces while
using this momentum to further integrate into NATO and Ukraine’s efforts to
maintain its sovereignty and counter Russian aggression.
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