You're reading: Zelenskiy team reveals plans for military reforms, fighting corruption

Ivan Aparshyn, an expert on defense in the team of winning presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has sketched out the upcoming administration’s key positions regarding Ukraine’s defense and security sectors, as well as combating corruption in the Armed Forces and Defense Ministry.

As Aparshyn wrote in its blog on the Obozrevatel media outlet on Apr. 22, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be developing forces of contracted and voluntary service “free of shameful draft” and reinforces with an active reserve force and a territorial defense system.

It will be commanded by combat-hardened officers “focused on victory and able to preserve a soldier’s life,” he added.

Besides, according to the expert, the Zelenskiy administration intends to pull back the shroud of ubiquitous secrecy and transparency in the sector.

The Defense Ministry’s budget will be maximally overt to public, so that “every person could keep track of every kopeck, the effectiveness of spending it and bringing it to soldier,” according to him.

“We’re not going to continue with the practice of concealing expenses on some clandestine programs and obscure projects,” the expert wrote. “It is this transparency that will allow for increasing payments for military personnel and bringing it to the level of allowances in NATO nations.”

State defense procurement would be available in open access too, he added, and Ukrainian businesses would get equal opportunities in the weapons market along with state-run enterprises. Besides, the UkrOboronProm, the state-run defense concern of over 130 military production enterprises will be reformed and stripped of its authority to define the policies of defense production.

Instead of that, a government agency will be created to define and implement the defense production policies, he added.

“I can reassure: everyone who is in some way involved in numerous semi-criminal schemes over fuel materials, or abuses in the supplies system of the Armed Forces, will not avoid holding responsibility. Documents regarding all those officials will be handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office for making a decision. It is obvious: there will be convictions.”

The defense and security sector will continue its “intense cooperation” with NATO and European Union formations, particularly in terms of reaching full compatibility of Ukraine’s Armed Forces with NATO during “possible joint operations.”

Besides, the next administration would be providing “decent standards of living” for the military, including ensuring service housing “within the shortest terms,” a full social benefits set including medical insurance and education in top-level military academies.

Families of soldiers and officers will be provided with support too, Aparsyn pleads.

Other than that, the Zelenskiy administration intends to grant veteran status to Ukrainian volunteer fighters who had been unable to give documentary evidence to their participation in defending Ukraine in the Donbas. Each individual case would be studied and resolved, Aparsyn wrote.

Moreover, the expert noted, the next administration would “make public the truth” about disastrous battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve of 2014-2015, as well as about the beginning of Russia’s war in Donbas and Russia’s invasion in Crimea.

“In the nearest time, people will get to know the truth,” he wrote.

“Nobody is going to hide anything from anyone. And officials who made decisions or were idle where actions were needed will be held responsible.”