On Wednesday, during the briefing in the township of Desna, Oleksandr Turchynov noted that the twenty first century “has revealed numerous local and systemic conflicts” and nowadays a modern country cannot exist without a modern army.
Thereat, he noted that in the recent years, attitude and financing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was carried out following the “left-over principle”. Oleksandr Turchynov said that in the past four years the Ukrainian army was being “systemically destroyed by order of another country. It was being disarmed and the best cadres were dismissed.”
According to the Acting President of Ukraine, when the aggression
against our country and occupation of Crimea began, Ukraine “felt serious problems
within the Armed Forces” and today the army “is being practically restored from
the ground up.” “For the short time period, Ukrainian Armed Forces were put on full combat alert and today the issue of reweaponing the Armed forces is on the agenda,” he claimed.
According to Oleksandr Turchynov, promising weapon systems were demonstrated on the training area, starting from small arms and ending with the most advances tanks. What is more important, all of them are produced on the Ukrainian enterprises. “These are the examples of Ukrainian weapons, the best weapons that will protect our country,” he said.
Oleksandr Turchynov claimed also that the military-industrial complex that “will be restored and will receive state order”, is able of providing complete closed loop production cycle. Thereat, the Acting President stressed that despite an extremely complicated economic situation, the government will allocate funds to protect our country in order not only to maintain the army, but to secure its reweaponing. “This is a strategic task that should be fulfilled,” he stressed.
Military capacity of Ukrainian weapons, as well as promising weapons examples that are planned to be given for reweaponing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly, small arms, protective mean and communication equipment were demonstrated on the training area. Mechanical run test and operational capabilities of military equipment were verified.
Jointly with the Acting President of Ukraine, the acting Defence Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Koval, Commander of the General Staff – Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Lieutenant General Mykhailo Kutsyn, Commander of the Ground Troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Anatolii Pushniakov and temporary acting Head of Administration of he President of Ukraine Serhii Pashynskyi were also present on the training area.