Ukraine’s authorities decided to hold a military parade on Independence Day, reviving a lost tradition and sparking a discussion on the relevance of having a parade while an actual war rages in Ukraine’s east.
Some 1,500 servicemen and 49 armored vehicles will move along Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv on the afternooon of Aug. 24 in a demonstration of Ukraine’s military force.
At the same time, many have been raising the question of whether the soldiers and equipment should be in the east, where the Ukrainian army has been fighting Russia-backed insurgents for the last five months.
“The price of this parade is human lives,” activist and Kyiv City Council member Ihor Lutsenko wrote in his blog (www.blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/lutsenko/53e9e736d0ad8), blaming the idea of keeping valuable equipment in Kyiv instead of on the front lines.
In response to public concern, the National Security and Defense Council announced that all the armored carriers and artillery participating in the parade will be sent to the east right after the celebration.
The advocates of the parade say it can improve the morale of Ukrainian servicemen.
President Petro Poroshenko’s adviser, Oleh Medvedev, confirmed the decision to have the parade was made after army commanders approved it.
“When it was discussed whether the parade should take place, the decisive moment was the opinion of the servicemen who know from experience that parades are important for the soldiers’ morale,” he told Channel 5 on Aug. 20.
According to Medvedev, the servicemen at the parade will represent various units that are fighting in the east. After Independence Day, they will return to fighting. Some of the military vehicles seen during the parade’s rehearsal on the Aug. 20 are similar to those already used by the Ukrainian army in the east, like Grad (Hail) rocket launchers, T-12 antitank guns and a range of APCs.
At the same time, Kyiv Post journalists who have been reporting from the war zone have confirmed that they never saw Ukrainian servicemen in the east in possession of some of the equipment shown during the parade’s rehearsal, including massive S-300 and Tochka missile systems.
Famous Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko backed the idea of having the parade for the sake of army’s morale.
“There is no army without parades,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
The last Independence Day military parade took place in 2009. In 2010, then-President Viktor Yanukovych canceled the parade for cost-saving reasons.
Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
