In mid-April, Ukraine’s General Staff announced something that looked, at first glance, likewartime symbolism.
A council of retired NATO generals would advise the commander-in-chief.
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The roster was striking: Sir Richard Shirreff, formerly NATO’s deputy supreme alliedcommander Europe; General David Petraeus, formerly director of the CIA; Admiral ManfredNielson, formerly the alliance’s deputy supreme allied commander for transformation; plusseveral other big names from Canada, Norway, Slovakia, the UK, and the US.
Most Western observers filed it under “diplomatic gesture.” They were wrong. Moscow knewit.
Within nine days, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman had pronounced on it from herweekly briefing podium. The Kremlin does not waste senior airtime on ornament.
The Military Expert Council ARES, which stands for Allied Reform and Expert Support, isnot really an advisory body, but a standing exchange of access.
Kyiv gets discreet entry to allied capitals, and Western forces get a direct line to the wartimeexperience accumulating in the Ukrainian General Staff.
The body is publicly named, but the work is mostly done in private. The name is not anaccident.
ARES is the Greek god of war, the one Homer called the destroyer. A wartime advisory bodythat names itself after him is making a quiet point: It is not staffed by think-tank fellows, butby men who have done the thing.
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A line of generals
Read Syrsky’s own words from late May, after a video call with Shirreff: ARES is a“practical instrument” for advancing Ukraine’s interests within the highest military andpolitical circles of partner nations.
Translation, in plain English: This is not just about consultation, but about influence.
Consider how the West has actually helped Ukraine since 2022. Defense ministries, theRamstein format, bilateral working groups – they have delivered enormous tonnages ofequipment.
They have been remarkably slow with everything else: doctrine, training models, the kind ofinstitutional change that armies do badly in peacetime and far worse in war.
Decisions about how Ukraine fights, organizes and integrates new technology have largelybeen Kyiv’s to make.
Sometimes with senior allied input. Often not. ARES rewires that.
Petraeus ran the CIA and designed America’s modern counterinsurgency doctrine. Shirreffcommanded NATO’s land forces in Europe and wrote a book in 2016 about the war thatarrived in 2022. Nielson ran a transformation for the alliance.
They have phone numbers. They sit on think-tank boards. They are interviewed in thesepages.
By placing them on a council with a structured remit and direct access to Syrsky, Kyiv hasbuilt a line into a dozen capitals at once.
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The flow is two-way.
After the council’s first working meeting on April 22, Syrsky made a crucial point.
Ukraine, he said, has the experience of “the largest and most technological war of the twenty-first century” and is ready to share it with allied armies. This is a quieter way of sayingsomething the alliance has yet to admit out loud.
After four years, the Ukrainian military knows things that British, German, and Americanarmies don’t.
How drone warfare actually works under jamming. What the electromagnetic spectrum lookslike when both sides are contesting it. How autonomous systems behave when no one haswritten the user manual yet.
ARES gives Western forces a structured way to learn – discreetly, professionally, withoutanyone having to publicly admit they need to.
Moscow listened first
On April 24, from her weekly briefing, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, MariaZakharova, devoted unusual airtime to ARES.
“They are not there to provide consultations, advice, or to bolster Ukraine’s attractiveness toinvestors. Instead, they are installed to exert manual control over Ukraine’s armed forces,” shesaid.
The council’s members are publicly named, formally retired, and advisory in function. But thespeed and prominence of the response are themselves the signal.
The Russian foreign ministry does not, as a rule, devote prime briefing time to bodies itconsiders ornamental. The Kremlin treated ARES as a serious instrument.
The broader signal is hard to miss.
Ukraine’s military is treating institutional reform as a wartime tactic, not a post-wardeliverable. Kyiv is no longer only asking for help. It is building the mechanisms throughwhich help can be more usefully delivered and through which its own hard-won experiencecan move the other way.
The Western capitals now have a phone number. The question is whether they will dial it.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of KyivPost.
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