What is being kept silent when changing the Minister of Defense of Ukraine
As soon as the commander of the National Guard Stepan Poltorak was appointed Minister of Defense, questions immediately began to flow - why him? After all, Poltorak is an “inside guy” and has an indirect relationship with the army.
In fact, exactly the same questions could be asked (and they were asked) about the previous ministers - Tenyukh, Koval, Geletey. Tenyukh is an admiral, and for this reason alone he is not very suitable as a minister of defense (Ukraine is primarily a continental state). Koval is a border guard. Well, Geletey is actually the head of the presidential security (he returned to this post).
The general trend is obvious - the new government appoints people not connected with the military department to the post of Minister of Defense. And this is obviously no coincidence.
The first version, of course, is that the Kiev authorities are not confident in the political reliability of the Ukrainian army. But such an assumption is unfounded. For example, I remember only one case of resignation of a high-ranking Ukrainian general - on February 21, on the eve of the coup d'etat, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Yuri Dumansky resigned. As a sign of protest against the involvement of the army in politics (he is now a member of the monitoring group for compliance with the Minsk agreements).
It seems that this is not a matter of political reliability, but of the professional insolvency of the Ukrainian generals.
Throughout all the years of independence, the Ukrainian army was continuously reduced and plundered, and, accordingly, its leadership could not help but have a caste of professional embezzlers. Suffice it to say that in Ukraine there are 260 military personnel per general, while in the Russian army there are 1100, and in the American army there are 1200.
In this sense, the personnel policy of Turchynov and Poroshenko is completely logical - a person who is not a member of the “caste”, who is not included in the complex relationships between 480 Ukrainian generals, must be appointed as minister. The appointment of Tenyukh seems to be an exception, but he is, firstly, an admiral; secondly, he is more a politician than a military man (back in 2004 he called on military personnel not to try to counteract the coup); thirdly, he became a minister under the Svoboda quota.
You can, of course, appoint a civilian official or politician as minister (especially since Ukraine already had civilian ministers Yekhanurov and Lebedev), but the country is at war! Moreover, the public is ready to accept the absence of martial law, but is not ready to accept the appointment of a non-military person to the post of minister.
Now regarding Poltorak itself.
Since 2002, he served as rector of the Academy of Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Kharkov. Considered close to the Dobkin-Kernes group. During Euromaidan, academy students defended the government quarter. However, he apparently put his eggs in different baskets and maintained his relationship with Avakov. In any case, on February 28 he was appointed commander of the internal troops, and then the National Guard (though on the second attempt).
I don’t know what role he played in preventing the creation of the Kharkov People’s Republic (I think - none; when its creation was urgent, he was already in Kyiv), but he was unable to restore order in the National Guard. However, it is quite possible that the president’s critics from the Maidan camp are not so wrong, and Poltorak should not have restored order at all.
Initially, the NSU was created on the basis of explosive units and volunteer territorial battalions, which were created from the militants of the Right Sector. The latter were initially uncontrollable and posed a greater threat to the Kyiv government than to the “internal enemy.” That is why the guardsmen were given the most difficult tasks from the very beginning, and personnel records were not properly kept. Actually, the army of Novorossiya was simply given the opportunity to “grind” the most frostbitten part of the Maidanists, which it successfully did.
It is likely that Poltorak’s appointment is connected precisely with this function performed by the National Guard. And maybe that’s why the revolt of parts of the NSU, which occurred just in time for Poltorak’s new appointment, did not make much of an impression on either the president or legislators. Although, it would seem, this rebellion should have put an end to Poltorak’s career. But no.
P.S.: By the way, the Minister of Defense in the Ukrainian political system is a public figure and manager of the financial and material part of the army. The Chief of the General Staff bears direct responsibility for troop operations. Meanwhile, Colonel General Muzhenko (by the way, he is an army man) did not follow Geletey. But it is he who bears full responsibility for all the “victories of the Ukrainian army” as the first deputy head of the Anti-Terrorism Center of the SBU (since May) and the Chief of the General Staff (since July).
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