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Pavel Tkachuk Head of the Army Academy named after Hetman Petro Sahaidachny. Lieutenant General. Doctor of historical sciences, professor. Decoration holder of the Order of Merit I, II, ІІІ Class, was awarded the Medals "For Irreproachable Service" and the "Defender of the Motherland." |
«You Must Lay Understanding into Minds of Our Successors that It Is Dangerous to Neglect Issues of Defense Capability of a Country, and It's a Crime to Put Them in Dependence on Party, Political and Clan Environment.»
— Having headed the Military Institute, you must have realized that ensuring continuity in the preparation of professional military servicemen has to be based on principles that meet the interests of Ukraine as an independent state. In your opinion, at that moment did everybody on whom depended such training of Ukraine's defenders realize the depth of this problem? What was then the most difficult for you as the head of the military educational institution?
— I remember that time very well. At the beginning of the XXI century there were many problems in our military education. The process of the succession of generations was falling apart: officers of the Soviet school were retiring and becoming part of reserve, and the officers of the Ukrainian school, arriving to replace them, for various reasons did not have the necessary fundamental theoretical knowledge, sufficient practical skills, in particular, combat experience. Incompetence of mid-level commanders resulted in problems of professional officers of the primary tactical level. By a chain reaction it engendered negative phenomena in the preparation of privates and sergeants. The Armed Forces of Ukraine had been experiencing a terrible shortage of professionals with a high level of training, of leaders capable of solving both common and unusual tasks. Clearly, this state of affairs did not satisfy the top leadership of the Military Department. In those circumstances I had to head the Military Institute. What was most difficult? Like in case of starting something new, most difficult was to determine the right balance between the new and the old, to preserve the golden fund of the staff, to get rid of the ballast, not to let destroy the material base, to modernize it, and eventually, to run the educational system, to approve the duties of persons in charge in the single educational complex of training of military specialists. What we have done for the Army Institute is the merit of all who participated in this process. And when our Institute was granted the status of the Army Academy, it was already meeting international requirements. We had to work very hard to make the educational process meet the same requirements. True, we had to part with some people, but the backbone remained and I am grateful to my subordinates for understanding of my demands to the organization of the educational process.
— Were you, as a graduate of the Odesa Artillery College, accused of lack of patriotism, when ten years ago, attempts were made to fully transfer the Academy from Lviv to Odesa, and you stubbornly resisted and argued it? And is it possible to assume that even in those relatively distant times, our potential enemy already meant fighting, which is going on in the East of Ukraine?
— At that time even if we thought about this, the possible development of such events did not fit into our minds. We did not want the situation to develop exactly as we see it today. But we know that advisability of location in a certain area of a military unit or a military institution is always taken into consideration. At least, that is how a military thinks. After all, he is responsible for the security of the state, he took an oath. In short, in the difficult times of the collapse of the Army we did manage to create and maintain the core of masters at our Academy. They combine traditions of the Russian military school with the latest achievements in training of the best armies in the world. This is what makes the Army Academy named after Petro Sahaydachnyi so special and impresses our colleagues in the country and abroad. As for my former “opponents” who did not like that the military educational institution was located in Lviv (among them there were representatives of the so-called public, some of People's Deputies, military, politicians), — what is the point to think about it today? The main thing is that the leadership of our country has always supported us and listened to our arguments.
— You said that to improve the educational institution something is always being done. Obviously, this is being done with taking into consideration the experience of the fighting in the so-called zone of ATO?
— Analyzing at the beginning of the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the East of Ukraine actions of commanders of subunits, we noticed that they did not always take clear decisions to perform a combat task. The relevant structures reacted to this, and all the higher military institutions received materials with the analysis of use of military units and subunits in the area of ATO, with specific recommendations for the use in the educational process of the combat experience, etc.
The Academic Council of the Academy has decided that to generalize the experience of the ATO having a positive effect on training of future officers, and later positively helping quality and quick adaptation of military units in modern realities, it is necessary for the teaching staff, officers-commanders of the Academy, International Center for Peacemaking and Security, Training Center № 184 to be directly in the zone of the armed conflict. You see, it is one thing when recommendations come from “above”, and quite another — when a particular vision of improving the educational process gets crystallized in a war zone. Today, when we are talking here, in combat units of all sectors of the ATO zone there are the Academy's officers as commanders and chiefs of staff, services, officers of structures working with staff and so on. After the return from business trips, they make reports, prepare methodical, guidance materials, and speak before staff of departments, training units. This way we get an objective assessment of our work and accumulate the so much-needed combat experience, the price of which is life and victory. By the way, that officer Hera, about whom was talking in an interview to your Borysfen Intel General Anatoliy Lopata, is a senior lieutenant Volodymyr Hera, with whom during his treatment had been in touch his former head of the department Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Shevchenko, currently, Head of Training Department of the Academy. Thanks to such contacts between teachers and graduates, two important goals are achieved. First — the military professional one: we receive the latest, most operational information from direct participants of combat actions. Accordingly, equally quickly, we provide them with recommendations, make changes in the curriculum and in the organization of practical training with cadets and officers undergoing training at our Academy. The second goal is humanist one: our graduates, being in hospitals because of wounds, contusions, regularly communicating with their teacher, their course' officer, remain in their social environment, in a familiar rhythm of psychological attitude of a military man, feel that they are needed, and this significantly and positively influences their rehabilitation, recovery and protects the psyche from post-traumatic states.
— Among those who are currently studying at the Academy, are there those who have received combat experience in the ATO?
— At the moment among the students there are 45 participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, who in reality had seen the advantages and disadvantages of the current training of an officer, sergeant, private of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
— “Practice is the criterion of the truth” – this saying is now more true than ever not only for the Academy, but also for all military servicemen of our Armed Forces. How quickly do you manage to adjust the curriculum, taking into account the combat experience of your graduates, currently carrying out combat missions in the East of Ukraine?
— The Academy is an organic component of the Armed Forces and in no way stands apart from the tasks being performed by the Army. In 2014 all the education programs were changed completely, 100 % plans of practical trainings on technique, terrain, arms. Accordingly, there had been changes in the tactical training of combat, in withdrawal from it of the main combat units of the Army. I repeat: the experience of the Anti-Terrorist Operation plays a key role here. Preparation and training of cadets of graduating courses have been radically rebuilt. The Academy and its subsidiaries also participate in active performance of combat tasks in the East of Ukraine.
— Could you kindly confirm this with facts of which our “war reporters” from our powerful media have no idea, bringing to the public “domestic altercations”?
— Last year, in the interests of fulfillment of the state's defense tasks, we conducted additional training for about 10 000 people from among the mobilized citizens of Ukraine. More than 1 thousand military servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine have improved their qualification. The Academy has fulfilled the mobilization task for deployment and formation of a Separate Artillery Brigade. The field training facilities (Yavoriv training ground) is widely used for the formation and combat coordination of 24 ОМБР, 80 OAЭMБР, subunits of which are manned by mobilizing. 69 officers-teachers, 157 students of senior courses of the Academy in the past year were directly involved in the preparation of obligated reservists and reserve officers of military units of the Western region. Up to fifty officers, contract servicemen from the Academy and its subsidiaries from April to December last year were in the ATO zone directly participating in combat operations. At the moment more than 3 dozens of our military servicemen are there. There is our military equipment and weapons, particularly artillery batteries, there. Academy's crews perform combat missions on special, engineer equipment. Leading specialists of the Academy constantly sum up experience of immediate participants of combat actions — privates, sergeants, cadets and officers. Based on the results of this work, amendments were made in combat training of small groups, individual units, anti-sniper struggle, repair-renewing subunits of the forefront, counter-battery specialist training, engineering units, and the like. Also, experts of the Scientific Center of the Army commissioned by the Scientific Unit of the General Staff of Ukraine have studied the system of government activity, local governments, institutions and organizations of the Defense Department and other military formations and law enforcement agencies, regarding their functioning in the circumstances of destabilization of the socio-political situation in matters of defense and mobilization work. This analysis will be taken into consideration when adopting amendments to legislation and other legal documents of Ukraine.
— Combat actions in the area of ATO “prompts” military experts, how well they conducted their training in a peaceful environment. Is there a need to open some special officer courses, where they could periodically, say, once a year, train commanders of different units? (During the Soviet era there were academic courses “Vystrel”).
— I would divide the problem into several components. Here is regarding the training of the serving officers of tactical level. Our academic network, in fact, is designed to comply with one of the principles of military education-continuity. For example, in recent years, classes of this network (where teaching is conducted not only by our specialists, but also by experts from leading foreign military educational institutions) have been attended by many officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Turning of the course network into a permanent complex for trainings of officers of the tactical level of the Army is an important proposal fitting well into the vision of military education, as part of Ukraine's new military doctrine. As for the reserve officers' training, I have complex range of feelings about the desire to mechanically increase the number of military senior divisions at civilian universities.
If we keep in mind medicine, based on the experience of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, then it is impossible not to agree. But the expansion of the reserve officers' training for mechanized, tank, artillery and other combat units on the basis of civilian institutions, to put it mildly, makes me wonder. The idea of increasing the number of higher education institutions, on the basis of which to do the military training, is unprofessional. It, unfortunately, indicates the dominance of the extensive approach in views on the military reform in general and the reform of military education, in particular. This reminds me of “China's big economic leap” in 1950s, when iron was smelted in every Chinese peasant's backyard, and China this way even overtook the USSR. However, this iron was not good even for domestic needs... The Anti-Terrorist Operation, the experience of the Academy have repeatedly proved that reserve officers who graduated from civilian universities, during mobilization, combat coordination, preparation of units for use were unusable for their intended purpose. Both, by their military professional and moral qualities. Unfortunately, it looks like production of that crude iron.
— What is your attitude to the contract service, based on the fact that the vast majority of enlisted privates and sergeants in the Crimea switched sides and began working for the Russians? And how can this be explained: by drawbacks in patriotic education, or by fault of organization of territorial defense? Perhaps if there had been an extraterritorial principle of recruitment, then such shameful phenomena of military servicemen’s transition to the enemy’s side could have been avoided?
— I should not explain the problem of non-effectiveness of military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stationed in the Crimea, only by shortcomings of the territorial principle of manning. It is deeper, its origins are in strategic miscalculations of the economic policy, ideological activity, human failures of the country's leadership regarding one of its subjects. The military defeat in the Crimea is just one and in no way the hardest of incarnations of the general Ukraine's defeat on the Peninsula. As for those who entered the service in the army of the aggressor, then, as we become aware (after all, many of us have relatives, friends, classmates, co-workers, military retirees in the Crimea), few of them have benefited from such metamorphoses. The attitude to traitors at all times, of all peoples and armies has always been equally bad. Apparently, as children they did not read “The Three Musketeers”, and if they did, they forgot what D'Artagnan said to Cardinal Richelieu's idea of the Musketeer's joining the Cardinal's Guards: “I will be perceive badly here and misunderstood there, so, I have to refuse”.
As for patriotic education. In my opinion, this is one of the strategic objectives to be achieved by the partial mobilization of 2015, no matter how paradoxical it may seem at first glance. Provided denial: “Of what problems of patriotic education can we talk, when our children, our fellow countrymen on the front and rear show examples of heroism and self-sacrifice for the country?” Honour to them, respect and glory. I am not talking about them… I mean deserters. Thus, during the three waves of mobilization in 2014 in Lviv were opened 121 criminal proceedings for evasion of mobilization. This refers to one of the thirty call-up papers, handed to the addressee. Refers to parents who are not afraid of God's punishment, abandon their sons, telling a representative of the Military Commissariat that for many years they had no contact with the child and do not know where he now resides.
We are talking about the destruction of the principle of unity of command. About how abusing, betrayal of some senior officers of the Army and Navy in early 2014, incompetence and cowardice of some senior officers in the mid-year battles have been transformed in the public consciousness into a common sign of equation between such commanders and all the officers and generals of the Army and consequently into disregard for the implementation of orders and instructions of commanders and superiors.
Analysis of the Military Prosecutor's Office shows that after the defections, evasion of military service, theft of weapons and ammunition, facts of disobedience, refusal to fulfill an order are one of the most common criminal offenses in a military environment.
The first rate task today is to return to people, first of all, those mobilized, faith in commanders, to lay in their minds the idea that we are all on the same side of the front, and that without proper discipline and subordination an Army unit turns into a gathering that is sure to become a victim of the enemy. Military forces can't cope with these problems efficiently and in full, on their own. Here we need the efforts of local governments, local authorities, managers and personnel of enterprises, organizations and institutions.
Here we need the efforts of local governments, local authorities, managers and personnel of enterprises, organizations and institutions. This will be a practical implementation of patriotic education. As for the principle of manning the Armed Forces of Ukraine, I am sure that formation of military units only on the principle of conscription in a modern army has exhausted its possibilities. At the same time, manning only on the basis of the contract system is economically unsupportable. Therefore we need a mixed system of manning of the Army and Navy on an extraterritorial basis. Laws of Ukraine, Decrees of the President of Ukraine, decisions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, NSDC’s documents on military matters evidence that the leadership of the state has chosen exactly this principle of manning.
Anyone who understands this, on whom it depends, must be careful not to repeat past mistakes in the future. We need to lay in our successors' minds understanding that it is dangerous to neglect issues of the country's defense capability, that it is a crime to make them dependent on party, political, clan environment. This will be patriotism in its highest, national manifestation.
— You have repeatedly visited foreign educational institutions and established cooperation with colleagues from other countries. Are you happy with it?
— The education process in our Academy has been studied by military teachers in the near and far foreign countries, and our scholars, educators and students are welcome guests at foreign military institutions.
Our international military cooperation began in 2006 when the Academy was visited by the United States’ Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor. Since then, the number of visits of foreign military delegations has increased steadily. In the 2010-2011 academic year alone, the Academy was visited by up to fifty foreign delegations from the USA, Poland, France, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Denmark and other countries, which fact shows that traditions rooted in decades of the Academy's working in Lviv have been preserved and augmented.
The most notable and memorable were the visits of the President of Mongolia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, who in 1988 graduated from our Academy (he was awarded the title of “Honorary Doctor of the Academy”), US Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft, Commander of the US Army in Europe General Hertling. They liked the command and academic staff's work, modern scientific and material base of the Academy. By the way, our Academy has been recognized as the best in the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the number and quality of international activities.
Special attention is paid to two-way exchange of cadets and teachers with the American West Point, French Military School of Saint-Cyr Coetquidan.
The high rating of organization of the education process of the Academy causes genuine interested among the leading military institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States. In general, every year in our institution take place up to 100 international events.
— Well, the Mongolian President does not forget how he studied in Lviv Military College. And who among Russians is currently interested in our institution?
— Sometimes we are visited by those who once studied in the walls of the Lviv Higher Military-Political College. And that is that. But we can't be blamed, that we are not willing to receive our guests, especially when they are sincere in their aspirations. This is a sign of being civilized.
— Pavlo Petrovych, it would be interesting to hear what you dream of being at the helm of the Academy in such a difficult time?
— I dream of creating a “Fort” “Getman Sahaydachnyi”. Similar to powerful centers for training of military specialists of all levels of the Armed Forces of the United States. This should be an institution based on our Academy, Yavoriv training base of the Training Center, the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security, Scientific Army Centre, Sergeant College, School and other parts. It will provide the land forces of Ukraine with highly qualified staff of tactical and operation-tactical level. Something for this is already being done.
— So I wish you success in this matter and thank you for your answers to my questions.
Conversation was recorded by Oleg Makhno
Photo of сaptain Dmitri Buchko
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High patriotism and devotion to the military oath of the Academy’s graduates participating in the ATO, were highly appreciated by the state: 115 officers were honored with the state awards, including 84 officer – with the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitskyi, the "Order For Courage" – 36. Alexander Petrakivskyi and Evgenyi Zelenskyi were honored with the highest award for personal courage and dedication — the title of Hero of Ukraine. The latter, unfortunately, posthumously. . |
