Thursday, June 4, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine after the Junior command staff introduced new ranks to senior officers. A bill to impose new rank of General supported the second reading 291 voice. After its signing, the law will come into force on 1 October 2020. According to the explanatory note, the document aims at bringing military officers to the standards of leading European countries and NATO. “Apostrophe” understood how the new rank of General made Ukraine closer to the Alliance.
The adopted law envisages the introduction of new titles “Brigadier” and “Commodore” for the Navy. Instead of “Colonel-General” introduced the title “General” and the rank “General of the army of Ukraine” canceled all. All rated prior to the enactment of title shall remain with the military, released from military service in the reserve or retired.
In the context of the reform of the Armed forces, the new title is important for the transition to the American system of financial support, when the payments are determined by salary for the title and not the basic salary.
Now the range of military ranks of the Ukrainian army is fully compliant with NATO STANAG 2116, which had previously been given non-commissioned rank. As already said “Apostrophe”, at the end of November 2019, the Ukrainian army refused the title of warrant officer and senior warrant officer in the army and air force, warrant officer and senior warrant officer in the Navy, and also introduced a number of new non-commissioned officers-petty officers ranks.
In particular, the army and air force appeared the rank of recruit (candidate soldier), soldier, senior soldier (qualified, gunner, driver or sniper), Junior Sergeant, Sergeant, senior Sergeant, first Sergeant, staff Sergeant, master Sergeant, senior master Sergeant and chief master Sergeant.
In the Navy, a new line of military ranks is as follows: recruit, sailor, seaman, petty officer 2nd article petty officer 1st article, chief petty officer, petty officer, staff Sergeant, master Sergeant, senior master Sergeant and chief master Sergeant.
Chief petty officer APU — head of Department on work with sergeants APU Alexander Kosinski said “Apostrophe” that has to date developed a number of normative documents necessary to transfer to the new non-commissioned officers-petty officers of a rank, the order of revalidation has been signed and is on registration in Ministry of justice. The next step will be the transition to staff positions under the new titles.
“Under law, recertification will begin in October 2020. According to the order, it must be held within three months, with the exception of entities that are in the area of Operations or joint forces in a peacekeeping contingent. For these units re-certification will begin after the return to places of permanent deployment,” said Kosinski.
The creation of the NCO corps standards-compliant countries-members of NATO enshrined in the state program of development of VSU. Term of execution — 2020.
Generic codes
A military analyst at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic cooperation Igor Goat explains to the publication that uses NATO codes for grades of military servicemen, to know what title corresponds to a specific position.
“Every member country in NATO has its rank, but in order to understand what the post is specific to a particular title there is a summary table. For officer ranks, use OF codes, OR — for Junior officers. Conventionally, when a new state joins the Alliance, it populates the table in accordance with their national titles, but what they are called, no one cares. For example, if the headquarters of NATO need to be an officer OF-2 (company commander), and the request will be OF-2, not the captain or Lieutenant. For comparison, the us Deputy head of division corresponds to the rank of Colonel, that is OF-5 in NATO standard, and they have — the Lieutenant-Colonel, OF-4. To unify and need code chart STANAG 2116” — says “Apostrophe” Goat.
Ukraine needs to achieve full cooperation of Russia with NATO forces by the end of this year. This is the task of the state program of development of VSU adopted in 2016. However, in March this year, the new defense Minister Andrei Taran said that the adaptation of the army to the standards of the Alliance is still an elusive goal in the near future. More real is the goal of achieving the maximum ability to interact with NATO forces. Common standards have long been a favorite mantra of the military-political leadership of Ukraine, but are not a NATO requirement for obtaining membership in the organization.
Chief consultant of the Department of military and military-economic policy of the National Institute for strategic studies Mykola Beleskov stresses that the reform of the APU are at the structural and organizational level, but they do not meet the needs of the modern military construction.
“I would like to see public access to relevant documents on the defence review, national security strategy and defence program for the development of the APU. We need to show the ability to respond to risks of escalation by the enemy. For compatibility we need unification across jobs, structures headquarters, communications, management and operations, and not the introduction of new military ranks,” says the “Apostrophe” of Beleskov.
The military structure of NATO does not require complete unification of military ranks for countries — members of the Alliance. It is important to the proportion of posts for those titles. Therefore, the appearance in the Ukrainian army generals or Commodores will not make the country closer to the Alliance. But it will allow the current leadership of the country to talk about the fact that, say, Ukraine at full speed rushes to NATO…
