2018 is dense with landmarks for Ukraine’s defense, as the nation sustained painful blows from Russia, whose war on Ukraine turns 5 years old in February.
While a stalemate has been achieved in the land war, Russia opened up a new front in which it has commanding power: the seas. Far superior Russian naval forces attacked Ukraine in the Black Sea, seizing three vessels and capturing 24 sailors while opening a new and very dangerous stage in the conflict.
Ukraine is not able to fight on this new front with its weak, neglected and underfunded navy. But Russian hits didn’t only come on the battlefields of Donbas and the waters of the Black and Azov seas.
As with all wars, people were killed and wounded: 110 soldiers and officers killed, more than 770 wounded in action, according to the General Staff. On Dec. 17, President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine has lost at least 2,914 military personnel since 2014. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Ukraine, up to 43 civilians were killed and 182 injured in 2018, as of Dec. 16.
Frozen frontline
Russian-led forces made little progress in altering the 450-kilometer frontline.
Not one intense battle was recorded. Instead, a low-level war of small squads, sporadically supplemented by heavy weapons, armored power and radio-electric bands, continued.
Ukrainian forces continued creeping advances, reclaiming slivers of territory in no-man’s land, restoring control over a number of villages.
Joint Forces Operation commander Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev said that between late April and August Ukrainian troops brought at least 15 square kilometers of the Donbas back under Ukraine’s flag.
New campaign
A series of crucial bills adjusted the country’s defense legislation and brought Ukraine further into compliance with NATO standards.
The first was the so-called Donbas reintegration law signed into force on Feb. 20. The document defined the uncontrolled eastern districts as illegally occupied and governed by Russia, and also held Russia accountable for the security and wellbeing of the local population.
The bill officially sealed Ukraine’s aspiration for “a peaceful reintegration” of the Donbas, without providing a roadmap for regaining sovereignty. Ukraine also keeps diplomatic and business ties with Russia.
It finally introduced a formal legal basis for the Armed Forces in the region without imposing martial law, and also subordinated all defense and security formations deployed to the war zone under the military-led Joint Operative Headquarters.
This directly paved the way for another milestone: The end of the “anti-terror operation” from April 2014 and the start of the Joint Forces Operation on April 30 — simply a new phase of Ukraine’s military campaign under a different name.
The operation’s appointed leader, Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev, was given exceptional powers in security controls in the combat area.
Piecemeal reforms
Innovations turned out to be limited and half-hearted.
The powerful SBU security service, under the control of President Petro Poroshenko, did not reform and still has excessive powers that have been used against political enemies and, allegedly, to further corruption.
A Reform Concept, designed with the help of NATO and European Union advisors, has collected dust since the fall of 2016. Under these and other plans, the 40,000-member SBU would be limited to an intelligence and counter-terrorism role.
A new National Security Law was signed into force on July 5. Strongly supported by Western envoys to Kyiv, it formalized civilian oversight and parliamentary supervision with a NATO-compatible chain of command for the Armed Forces.
The bill, however, failed to bring transparency to defense and security spending which, at 5 percent of GDP (or $6 billion), is still cloaked in secrecy, making corruption in spending hard to spot.
Finally, Ukraine on Oct. 13 got a new civilian defense minister in the Western tradition. But Stepan Poltorak remains, simply retiring from military service and becoming a civilian under Poroshenko’s appointment. By the end of the year, only 18 percent of the ministry’s staff are to remain in the military, while the rest, including Poltorak’s deputies in the ranks of generals, will simply become civilian officials.
Some good news
2018 was the year when the United States first provided Ukraine with lethal defensive weaponry. U. S. President Donald J. Trump, despite his sympathies for Ukraine’s enemy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, finally approved the supply of FGM‑148 Javelin anti-tank systems. 210 rockets and 37 launchers worth $47 million arrived on Ukrainian soil in late April. The U. S. also on Sept. 27 officially handed two Island-class patrol boats over to Ukraine’s navy, again at no cost.
Ukraine produced more of its own military hardware and tested new and modernized weaponry, such as the Neptune anti-ship missile, the 155-millimeter Bohdana self-propelled howitzer, or the 300-millimeter Vilkha missile complex, which was put into service in October.
State-owned defense production concern UkrOboronProm supplied 1,000 armored vehicles to the country’s military, according to the concern’s press service. In 2018, it also fulfilled a long-overdue contract to supply 49 Oplot-T tanks to Thailand.
UkrOboronProm started the year with the resignation of Roman Romanov, a Poroshenko ally whose tenure was marked by corruption scandals. The new head, Pavlo Bukin, appointed in late February, started by firing 40 percent of the concern’s 286 top administrators.
The Ministry for Veteran Affairs was launched to help 354,000 Ukrainians who served in the military, as well as roughly 1 million veterans of past conflicts. Iryna Friz, a lawmaker with the president’s 139-member faction in parliament, took over the ministry despite having no experience in veteran affairs. According to Friz, the ministry will become fully functional by June 2019.
2019 challenges
Despite record spending in security and defense, including a 22 percent increase on the $6.1 billion in 2018 spending, this is still not enough to keep the nation secure, Poltorak said.
Ukraine faces a critical challenge in preventing Russia from taking over complete control of the Azov Sea, damaging Ukraine’s shipping and economy, as well as restricting Ukraine’s rights in the Black Sea.
Russia has deployed as many as 120 various warships to the Azov, according to Ukraine’s Border Guards. Ukraine’s very weak and vulnerable defenses numbers only a handful of outdated combat vessels.
Ukraine belatedly adjusted by drilling its land forces to defend the country’s coasts from a possible Russian amphibious assault. Ukraine urgently redeployed several vessels, including new Gurza-M gunboats and Kentavr personnel carriers to the Azov, and in September launched a new maritime base in Berdyansk.
Russia’s Nov. 25 attack at sea triggered Ukraine’s declaration of martial law for 30 days until Dec. 26 in 10 oblasts, far short of the 60-day, nationwide alert Poroshenko wanted, which would have delayed the March 31 presidential election in which he is trailing badly in the polls.
The Western response was long on concern and short on action.
While the U.S. prepared to send a navy force to the region on Dec. 19, the British research vessel HMS Echo was the first NATO warship to visit Ukraine since the Nov. 25 attack, mooring in Odesa on Dec. 20.
Nonetheless, this new chapter of Russia’s war will last into 2019.
On Dec. 19, the chairman of Ukraine’s Defense and Security Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, told BBC Ukraine that Ukrainian navy forces will make another attempt to break through Russia’s blockade of the Kerch Strait and enter the Azov Sea from the Black Sea.
