Bezuglaya vs. Zaluzhny. How the demands of the Servant of the People can affect the management of the army and the security of the country

The supreme leadership of the political force “Servant of the People” appealed to the military command with a request to present an action plan for the coming year. As part of this appeal, MP Maryana Bezuglaya even demanded the dismissal of Valery Zaluzhny. They say he controls the army inadequately.

People's Deputy, Deputy Chairman of the relevant parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence Maryana Bezuglaya (Servant of the People) demands the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny. She justified her decision by the fact that General Zaluzhny was unable to provide a plan for the war plan for 2024. wrote about this on her own Facebook page. Bezuglaya did not disclose details of where and when the command was supposed to provide these plans, but only referred to some “non-public discussion.”

Similar statements about war plans for next year have already been made by the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia.

“Another question that is very hot is how many more people will be mobilized. There is a mobile resource, it is well known. But if you do rotation, then you need to mobilize another half of the people in Ukraine, and if not, then they (already mobilized - ed.) suffer. What to do with this, and at least give me a short plan for the year, give me a vision. We tell the military leadership. But there is no vision - we live as we lived. But this doesn’t suit us, because we need to prepare,” Arakhamia said in an interview with the “Mosiychuk+” TV program on the “1+1” channel.

How the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is fired

According to current legislation, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the highest leadership position in the Ukrainian army. The issue of appointment and dismissal of the commander-in-chief falls within the powers of the president upon the recommendation of the minister of defense. Until 2020, the Commander-in-Chief also served as Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; the adoption of the Law on the Fundamentals of National Security separated these two positions.

The powers of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine include monitoring the state of provision of the army with military equipment, weapons and other resources. This activity is aimed at developing the army, its training and support. He reports only to the President, that is, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and the Minister of Defense on the achievement of military-strategic goals in the field of defense. People's deputies or the relevant committee do not have the authority to report from the commander-in-chief. Exactly the same as the initiatives to appoint or dismiss him.

Terminology of war and defense

According to the former director general of the Directorate for National Security and Defense of the Office of the President, reserve colonel Ivan Aparshin, no war plan exists in nature. There are plans of operations, for example, offensive, defensive, counter-offensive. Already at the tactical level they are concrete combat actions. If we talk about the MP’s question, then structurally it looks like this: the idea of ​​the operation - the decision to carry it out - the operation plan. The costs of such operations are discussed at the Security Council and Headquarters.

“All the expenses that the MP is asking about are in the State Budget, which she, among other things, prepared and voted for. It looks strange how this document was claimed at the time,” he tells Focus .

The only document that speaks about plans for waging war on the territory of the country is the Defense Plan of Ukraine, which is developed annually and approved by the president. The document is part of defense planning and is classified. Exclusively according to the Defense Plan, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine develops plans for conducting operations. The plan put into effect by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine dated February 24, 2022 is now in effect. Its scenario is an escalation by the Russian Federation of armed aggression against Ukraine, armed aggression by other states or coalitions of states - the full-scale use of military force against Ukraine through military operations with decisive objectives, which may be accompanied by information campaigns, information-psychological operations, cyber operations and special operations against Ukraine, as well as a blockade of its ports, coasts, and airspace.

The issue of the needs of the troops is determined by the Commander-in-Chief and the Minister of Defense annually when planning the state budget for the next year. There are also plans for mobilization, rotation of combat units and their replenishment. All these documents have limited access and are state secrets. People's deputies, especially from the relevant committee, should know this well.

“I am more than sure that there is such a plan, it has been developed and detailed to the level of military units. At the moment, it is expected to be adjusted depending on the military assistance that we can receive from the United States. An operation plan consists of thousands of documents; at the end of this entire complex there is a point with the resources that are allocated for it. We have not yet been told how much and what kind of equipment we will receive from our partners,” says Aparshin.

The authorities are preparing for increased mobilization

In public Ukrainian politics, it is customary to look for someone who may benefit from a particular decision or statement. We will leave the issue of discrediting the military command and demoralization of personnel to the discretion of the political leadership of Servant of the People. However, according to Bezugla, the need to strengthen mobilization in Ukraine is clearly visible. Last week, President Zelensky instructed Zaluzhny and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to present a new mobilization plan.

stated this during a press conference with Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevics. Here it is worth clarifying that the command of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is responsible for carrying out the mobilization, carrying it out with the help of the Territorial Recruitment Centers.

Zaluzhny himself wrote about the need to change approaches to mobilization . The general noted an increase in the mobilization and preparation of reserves. Attention was drawn to the need to correct legislative gaps and introduce new programs, such as “combat training.” Currently, work is underway in the Verkhovna Rada to amend the relevant legislation.

“Now we need to take into account the entire male population aged 18 to 60 years, as well as women liable for military service. We need to understand the potential and opportunities for staffing the Defense Forces. We have a certain shortage of combat units, and to conduct operations to de-occupy the territory we need new brigades, which the command is talking about. This is in addition to the fact that the existing ones must be staffed,” ex-Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Igor Romanenko, Focus

He recalls that there were always some issues between the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff due to the division of duties and responsibilities.

“Mobilization plans are a matter of state secret, but the question of how the necessary military personnel should appear is not secret information. The Russian Federation has four times the population, our military says that when an enemy unit is destroyed in a position, a new one appears in the morning. Based on this, we need to think about how to provide for one of our servicemen so that he can fight against four,” says the expert.

It is worth recalling that conflicts in the military environment have extremely negative consequences for the defense capability of the state. In the period from March 2020 to July 2021, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was Colonel General Ruslan Khomchak, who had a conflict with Defense Minister Andrei Taran. When the conflict began to become public, Khomchak was fired, and Taran was subsequently dismissed. In July 2021, Valery Zaluzhny was appointed commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who had a little more than six months before the start of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.