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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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19Dec14
NATO begins to train Ukrainian NCO corps
Ukraine's military is taking advantage of a unique opportunity to raise professionalism by seeking NATO's assistance to improve its military education programmes.
Military commanders and analysts said enrolling Ukrainian soldiers in courses where they will learn to become sergeants according to NATO standards will bring "great results" for the further success of Ukrainian Army.
"Sergeant is the basis of any army in the world, because he commands the soldiers directly," Valeriy Ryabykh of Defence Express Media and Consulting, told to SETimes. "Today, character of the war has changed very much. If earlier military commanders prepared extensive frontline operations, very large-scale, in the modern conditions we are talking about manoeuvrable-type operations, both in defence and in attack. The role of tactical link increases and who is to supervise the tactical level? Yes, these people are sergeants. Therefore, they play a key role in the army now."
A Non-commissioned Officer (NCO) training programme that complies with NATO standards will begin in the army academy named after Hetman Petro Sahaydachnyi, located in Lviv. Later, the programme will be implemented in other Ukrainian cities.
A NATO military delegation visited the Sahaydachnyi Academy on December 17th. Alliance experts and experienced trainers attended the training process of Ukrainian sergeants to check their preparedness and learn about current education methods.
"We are ready for constructive dialogue and the full support of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Boguslaw Pacek, a retired Polish major general who is NATO's adviser for military education reform in Ukraine, told reporters during the visit to the academy. "I would like to say that the whole world supports progressive desire of the Ukrainian people for freedom and democracy."
Along with professional military education experts, representatives of the NCO corps from Canada, US, Lithuania and the Czech Republic visited the academy to analyse the Ukrainian training programme and provide suggestions on how to improve the educational process and bring it closer to Alliance standards.
"It is very positive that experts from the West will be involved in the preparation of our sergeants, because it is a completely different approach to the educational process and completely different experience," Ryabykh said. "This is something like vaccination to our armed forces. We need this help, but it will be useful if we don't just copy foreign experience on our ground, but if it will be comprehended and transformed into our reality."
The Chief of the Army Academy Lieutenant General Pavlo Tkachuk said learning from the experience of the world's leading armies, especially NATO members, is crucial in the context of NCO corps training.
"During the last months the Ukrainian Armed Forces have turned into the one of the most combat capable and experienced armies in the world," Tkachuk told reporters at the academy. "But there is still a lot of work on formation of the national army, because before our military get invaluable experience on the battlefield, in particular during anti-terrorist operations in the east, they must acquire fundamental knowledge during the grounding and get appropriate military education."
Military experts said the Ukrainian Army is in need of professional sergeants.
"We were negligent in this issue," Ihor Koziy, a military expert at the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Co-operation, told SETimes. "NCO corps will give clearly positive result, only if the army leadership will take care of it, if sergeants will have a good salary and the opportunity for professional growth."
Pacek said it could take three to five years to completely change the sergeants' education system so that it complies with NATO standards.
"After some time you will meet with the military, which passed this training and they will tell you, what they got from it, what they learned," Pacek said. "The main thing is your desire and concrete goals, and we certainly love Ukraine with all [of our] heart. We are ready to help this beautiful country."
On average, the sergeant training takes three to six months. The faster the NATO recommendations work, the faster the Ukrainian Army will benefit from a new generation of sergeants, military experts said.
In addition, Ukraine has a unique opportunity to recruit the best staff for the training programme by including young soldiers who fought in the east. Military commanders can choose the best among those soldiers, assembling a group of future sergeants who already have significant military skills and combat experience, experts said.
"Powerful NCO corps will influence automatically to army's combat capability," Koziy said. "In fact, for us it is not a new system. By the end of the World War II, we had a lot of sergeants. These were the people who passed the war, and they were appointed to the most important positions. It was believed that these were very experienced people. But later everything has changed."
But now, thanks to NATO, Ukraine has a chance to rebuild the effectiveness of NCO corps, he said.
"This training programme is a good trend," Ryabykh said. "It has a psychological aspect as well: We are not alone. This is a signal that Europe is aware that threat of war is real, not only for us but for the whole region."
[Source: By Alex Statko for Southeast European Times in Kyiv, Ukr, 19Dec14]
 | This document has been published on 29Dec14 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |