The army is stronger than in 2014 – but it still looks bad

The annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the heavy defeats in the first years of the war in Donbass were the two key external shocks that shaped the identity of the Ukrainian army. The 2014 war caught the country completely unprepared: “Ukrainian armed forces lacked the manpower, equipment, and training to counter Russia’s aggression,” a group of military experts recently wrote on the Atlantic Council’s website.

With the annexation of Crimea, Ukraine not only lost almost 20,000 soldiers in one fell swoop, most of whom defected to Russia without a fight, but also part of its armaments industry and 70 percent of the ships in its navy. The air force was also severely weakened in the war over eastern Ukraine. Defense against attacks from the air and from the sea is still one of the country’s key weak points.

According to the defense minister, the army had only 6,000 operational soldiers in 2014. They only managed to stabilize the front line towards the separatist “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were militarily and financially supported by Russia, and only with the help of right-wing extremist voluntary organizations financed by oligarchs. According to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, more than 4,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been among the more than 13,000 people who have died in the conflict since then.

The challenge that the Ukrainian army has been trying to master since then is self-liberation from the ballast of the Soviet and post-Soviet past. The armed forces, which have been neglected for decades, have seen rapid expansion. According to figures from the Sipri peace research institute, Kiev has almost doubled its military spending since 2014: in 2020, the country spent the equivalent of almost $6 billion, which is only a tenth of Russia’s spending. The workforce has also been increased – and according to a new decree by President Volodymyr Zelensky, is to increase by another 100,000 over the next three years.

Modernization with hurdles

Modernization includes adapting the organizational structure, training and weapons to the standards of NATO, which Ukraine wants to join. The challenges remain considerable: Experts complain about the often non-transparent processes in procurement despite reforms, which encourage corruption. Unclear structures create conflicts between civilian and military leaders, which contributed to the resignation of the reform-oriented defense minister in 2020. His successor resigned in November last year because of political disputes.

Spending per serviceman remains among the lowest in all of Europe. Poor pay and poor accommodation promote turnover, particularly among officers and non-commissioned officers, and do not make it easier to recruit professional soldiers deployed at the front. The New York Times described how the soldiers recently transferred to the Donbass defense lines had to dig their own trenches and shelters.

The weapons of the Ukrainians, not only at the front, consist largely of revised but outdated systems from Soviet stocks. Thus, comparisons of combat effectiveness with that of the more modern Russian army, which are numerically disadvantageous to Ukraine, obscure an even clearer inferiority.

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“We need military and technical support,” the head of the military intelligence service, General Kirilo Budanov, recently summed up his demands on the West, “not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, not in a year. Now.”

NATO member countries, above all the USA with 2.7 billion dollars, have provided military aid on a large scale. The most important weapons include modern anti-tank missiles and “Stinger” anti-aircraft missiles. In addition, there are large deliveries of ammunition for small caliber weapons and artillery, for example from Poland and the Czech Republic, radars and vehicles.

Since March 2021, the Eastern European country has also had a modernized anti-ship missile that it developed itself. It has obtained drones from Turkey as part of a modernization program for the air force.

Experienced fighters

Despite all the problems, experts see the morale of the troops as the greatest trump card. Almost half a million Ukrainians, including 13,000 Ukrainians since 2016, have gained combat experience over the past eight years, which represents a significant reservoir in the event of an armed conflict with Russia.

Ukraine also has several thousand members of elite units, including marines, parachutists and NATO-certified Spetsnaz special forces. The army consistently enjoys the highest levels of trust in society – in complete contrast to politics, for example.

Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the Ukrainians are not only militarily inferior to the Russians, but also strategically at their mercy: If the Kremlin really decides to attack, it could be pinched by its neighbors from Crimea, Donbass and Belarus to take. Those Ukrainian troops fighting east of the Dnipro River would be under fire from all sides and in acute danger of being cut off from supplies.

Scenarios by military experts assume that the Russians could decimate the Ukrainian defenses within a very short time thanks to their superior air force and rocket attacks. Then the principle of hope applies: If the leadership loses control, according to a high-ranking official, the army will open its weapons depots to the war-tested population and hope that they will continue to fight underground.

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