They won't be back for Orthodox Christmas: Ukraine's troops in Iraq.
On August 7th, Ukraine sent off its first batch of troops to take part in the U.S. led "multinational" stabilization force in Iraq. At that time, most of the attention of the international media was focused on the diplomatic victory won by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who just months before had been considered a political pariah in the West following a long string of accusations including everything from ordering the death of opposition journalists to selling radar systems to the very country he was now sending forces to help occupy. His opponents at home kicked up the usual fuss, but in the end Ukraine's parliament approved the sending of up to 1800 military personnel to the war-torn Middle-East country after getting the green light in the form of UN Security Council Resolution No 1483.
Since then, anyone who takes an even occasional glance at the Internet or refrains from turning the channel when a news broadcast is read knows that the people sent to modern day Babylon aren't just stabilizing, they're dying - a few at a time. So how have Ukraine's men in uniform fared during all this over the last couple of months?
The Washington Post, as good an indicator as any of the view one gets from Western media, described the men of the 5th Detached Mechanized Brigade as "scrawny young Ukrainian soldiers" who received "a few weeks of special training" and "none of the high-tech weaponry of the U.S. Marines" before being sent to a place where countries like Germany and France refused to go. This was written before the troops had left to Iraq. The author of the 27 July article, Susan B. Glaser, then goes on to sing a few obligatory verses of the post-Soviet financial blues with a brief allusion to rusty cold-war materiel and frightened east-Europeans who are willing to suffer all sorts of abuse out of ignorance of their human rights or for a chance to make some money to live like they do in Brazilian soap operas. The lasting impression of the article is that Ukraine threw together some troops to smooth things over with the U.S.
Konstantyn Khyvrenko, the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's press service, paints a different picture: "We didn't set ourselves the goal of improving relations with the U.S." Sitting calmly in his modest office with a view of winter-time Kiev outside the window (so far from Baghdad), he began to unroll the facts in a professional manner that would put a few Western press attaches I have spoken with to shame: "Ukraine is in Iraq to secure its longstanding political and economic interests there," he said, adding that the U.S. agreed to foot the bill for everything but salaries. This makes sense - otherwise Ukraine would be reverting back to the mercenary traditions of its Cossack forefathers. And regarding the economic interest, not only Ukraine is looking to get a tasty reconstruction project or oil deal. Although in a recent report to the newspaper 2000, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Konstantyn Hryschenko said that Ukraine would definitely "gets it teeth into" something from Iraq.
But what about the troops? According to Khyvrenko, they are indeed given a financial incentive to put their lives at risk - $550-$600 for enlisted and $900- $1,200 for officers, plus their regular salaries, 10% over the top for climactic conditions and $107,000 if they get killed. Without going into a breakdown of Ukrainian military pay scales, let it suffice to say that they are, at least according to Khyvrenko, getting significantly more than the guys who stay at home. There was even a rumor that some volunteers paid bribes to be chosen for desert duty. Khyvrenko told me that he'd heard this as well but that "no one has been caught" doing so as far as he knows.
So now Ukraine has been given a chance to protect its economic interests (after all, they were actually there doing business before the bombs starting dropping) while getting some live training and some extra cash for its otherwise pretty demoralized army (which is what they have been doing in places like Kosovo and West Africa anyway). So what if Kuchma has come out looking good? It was the U.S. and Britain that decided they weren't too particular about whom they call military allies in the . Of course U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powel was careful to remind the naughty Ukrainian leader a short time after signing him up that Ukraine's participation in the coalition doesn't mean it can be undemocratic or violate human rights: i.e. joining the fight against evil doesn't mean you can hang out with the saints.
The statement released by the U.S. embassy on 5 June goes something like this: "Ukraine's contributions to peace and stability in the Persian Gulf, beginning with the deployment to Kuwait of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Remediation Battalion, help us to address the new threats that affect us all. They bear witness to a commitment to create conditions where despotism, tyranny and terrorism cannot exist." And this: "By contributing to a secure and stable environment in Iraq, Ukraine will also contribute to the conditions that will give Ukraine a fair and competitive chance to participate in reconstruction contracts." In short: Help us fight tyrants, you tyrant, and you might get some of the spoils.
So is everyone in the fight against evil happy? Let's look at a few of those whose relatives ended up with the $107,000 compensation option. So far, Ukraine has lost three men in Iraq: According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's press office in Wasit (southern Iraq); one died when his armored personnel carrier turned over on 30 October; Sgt. Suslov, a machine gunner, was killed "while carelessly handling his weapon" on 11 November; and Captain Oleksy Bondarenko, an Arabic interpreter, reportedly killed himself on 18 November, leaving a note to confirm it was suicide.
In the opinion of Communist lawmaker Igor Alekseyev, these deaths just go to show that Ukraine's troops weren't "sufficiently well trained" for such an assignment. In a telephone interview with the Observer, he recalls that military action against Iraq wasn't sanctioned by the UN and thus Ukrainian participation makes them invaders in the pay of the United States.
Khyvrenko brushes aside these arguments, pointing out that 8% of the officers fought in Afghanistan while more than 30% of the overall troops have served on peacekeeping missions before. In addition, he emphasized, all are contract servicemen, which means they completed their draft service and decided to stay in as professional soldiers. Moreover, he recalled that the kind of objections voiced by political groups like the Communists is not unique to Ukraine: "55% of Poles were against sending troops to Iraq, while the figure for Ukraine was 60%," he said.
Faced with such contradictions, I decided to get an opinion from someone outside the political fray but with enough specialty knowledge to understand that "scrawny soldiers" are usually better fighters than the muscle men depicted in Sylvester Stallone films. So I turned to Major Jerzy Tomasik, the deputy defense attache at the Polish Embassy in Kiev. Besides informing me that Ukraine's 5th Brigade is only administratively subordinate to the multinational division in southern Iraq headed by a Polish commander who is flanked by Spanish and Ukrainian deputy commanders (thus allaying any nationalist fears of a return to Polish hegemony over its eastern neighbor), Tomasik gives assurances that Ukraine's contingent is at least as good as its partners in the coalition force, including the equipment it is using, which is Ukrainian made.
If death counts are any indication of an army's level of training, than a quick look at the website unaville.org/warcasualties, puts Ukraine's three casualties into better perspective. Since hostilities ended in May: The U.S. has lost 320 servicemen, the UK -20, Italy -17 and Spain (part of the same division as Ukraine) - 10 (including 2 military diplomats). Most startling, as you read through the list of names and accompanying information on how they died, you realize that suicides, accidents and friendly fire make up around half the casualties. Thus, Ukraine's losses appear no more unusual than those of its .
So can we now safely send a strongly worded letter to the Washington Post and dismiss Ukraine's opposition as political opportunists? Why not - in the name of Ukraine's much defamed fighting men, including interpreters like Oleksy Bondarenko. However, according to a press release from the Ukrainian military released after his death, he was only drafted the same month Ukraine began sending troops. But according to Konstantyn Khyvrenko, "all the people sent to Iraq were uniformed military personnel (contract soldiers). The question then is how long they had to get used to their helmets and flak jackets.
As far as the Observer could ascertain from more than one source (most armies, including Ukraine's, don't like their soldiers giving interviews to journalists), Bondarenko graduated from a military school with a specialty in Arabic in the early nineties. What he did after that is unknown, but he almost certainly hadn't worn a uniform in while. In Ukraine, once a person is drafted (which all able bodied young men face unless they can come up with a way to get out of it - as many increasingly do), he remains on a list of reserves for several years after finishing his service. Bondarenko would have been subject to the same and thus could technically be called a career soldier.
The fact is that Ukraine, like virtually every other country taking part in the stabilization force, doesn't have enough military personnel who know Arabic - a serious problem if you're trying to create stability among people who may very well view you as an invader. Having told everyone it was going to take part, Ukraine had to find some interpreters. Major Tomasik told me that the Polish commander relies on a professor of Arabic studies who was flown in from Poland to help him get over the language barriers he encounters in his daily routine. Which brings us to the final leg of our excursion ...
Sitting with a tiny group of fresh-faced students at Kiev's National Linguistic University, I learned that all had been invited to join Ukraine's forces in Iraq to gain some professional experience. The invitation was passed on by the dean of their department, who in turn had been asked to find recruits by Ukraine's Ministry of Education. According to the students, graduates were offered a commission and around $600.00 a month, while the others would be paid as enlisted personnel. Their language skills weren't tested, but they had to pass a rigorous physical after which some were rejected. They also had to sign a contract - which would mean they too had joined the military.
In fairness to Ukraine, the U.S. and other militaries also conduct aggressive enlistment campaigns on university campuses, and professional wars are largely fought by young people. However, The Observer has gained access to letters sent from Iraq by student-soldiers who paint a pretty dismal picture of service in the sands, including poor treatment, poor supplies and sexual harassment of female recruits. We were asked not to include the names or details given by the students for fear that they may be punished by their superiors. But, contracts aside, one doesn't get the impression that they were prepared for what they are now facing.
Then again, returning to the reams of U.S. and British casualties, It doesn't look they really knew what they were getting into either. But the order to recruit interpreters from Ukrainian universities didn't come from the military. According to what the students were told, it was part of a presidential decree. A quick check of No 459-2003, signed on 2 June, makes reference to "Ukraine's obligations to the UN" and "the securing of Ukraine participation in the rebuilding Iraq" but not how the Cabinet of Ministers, much less the military, is supposed to do all this.
"The military is just following orders approved by parliament," Khyvrenko exclaims, adding that under Ukraine's budget, the military, including defense plants as well as peacekeepers, are expected to bring in revenues and not just spend them like other armies do. What the 5th Detached Mechanized Brigade's human balance sheet will look like when it's all over remains to be seen.
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