by Oksana Grytsenko
Valeriy Heletey, Ukraine's Defense Minister since July.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey inked a trilateral agreement with his Lithuanian and Polish counterparts on forming a joint military brigade on Sep. 19 in Belweder Palace, Warsaw.
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski eyewitnessed the ceremony.
What received a LitPolUkrBrig military abbreviation will be involved in the United Nations' peacekeeping operations and most likely won't be deployed in the war-torn east of Ukraine. But it still may outrage Russia, a vehement opponent of Ukraine’s closer ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the experts admit.
Both Lithuania and Poland are NATO members, while Ukraine now is seeking for a more effective partnership with a Brussels-based military bloc.
Poland's Lublin will serve as the new brigade's city of residence. Unit will include three battalions representing each of the three member states, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said. New brigade will include 545 Ukrainian troops that previously were a part of Lviv 80th airborne brigade, whose soldiers are already participating in the military trainings of the joint unit. It should be fully prepared and technically equipped within the next two years, according to a report by Channel 5, a television station owned by President Petro Poroshenko,
The idea of having a joint brigade goes back to November 2009, but it was slow in development since the government of former president Viktor Yanukovych, who came to power in 2010, didn’t pay much attention to the country’s military forces.
The initiative revived in 2014, when the new government started seeking international military support to deal with Russian aggression in Donbas, an industrial region in Ukraine's east. Therefore, nation's Cabinet of Ministers on May 27 approved a decree on creation of this unit and on July 9 passed Heletey a legal power to sign the document with Poland and Lithuania.
“This is a very important decision for us as two countries that will participate in a joint brigade – Poland and Lithuania – are the NATO members and we… will be preparing for the NATO standards,” said Mykhailo Koval, former defense minister, Interfax Ukraine reported.
Meanwhile, Anton Mikhnenko, editor at Ukrainian Defense Review, says NATO standards involve rather minor technical requirements, while the overall improvement of the quality of local military production is needed.
As the new brigade is categorized as a peacekeeping one, it won't likely operate the heavy weapons.
“The peacekeeping missions don’t need tanks or cannons, light wheeled armored vehicles or mortars,” said Viacheslav Tseluiko, expert of Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a think tank.
He added that the unit will rather serve as a demonstration of solidarity between the three countries. Both Lithuania and Poland have become major advocates of Ukrainian interests in the European Union and opponents of Russian bullying policy.
However, Tseluiko foresees that Russian propaganda may use a newly created unit when it will need another reason to justify invasion to Ukraine.
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