Vladimir Putin has helped accelerate the creation of exactly what he feared: a strong and combat-ready Ukrainian national army.
This was stated by retired American Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, former commander of US forces in Europe, to The Bulwark.
The Ukrainian army has evolved from a weak and corrupt structure to one of the most adaptable forces in modern warfare. Russian aggression has largely accelerated this transformation, the American military believes.
Hertling recalls his first meeting with Ukrainian soldiers in 2004 in Iraq. At the time, he said, the Ukrainian contingent was experiencing serious problems with discipline, training, logistics and combat readiness.
He describes the army of that period as a structure that largely retained its Soviet institutional legacy. The officers, he says, were incompetent, the NCOs were untrained, and corruption remained a serious problem.
“I remember thinking that this was an army that still carried a lot of the institutional DNA of the Soviet Union,“ Hertling recalls.
Over time, however, the situation began to change. When Hertling commanded the US Army in Europe, he worked closely with the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian command sought to adopt new approaches to training its soldiers, and sergeants were sent to study at American military academies. This cooperation gained particular importance after 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and began aggression in Donbas.
According to Hertling, Russian aggression has not broken Ukraine, but rather accelerated the creation of the army that Moscow feared most - a strong and combat-ready Ukrainian national army.
The result became especially noticeable in February 2022. Russian troops faced a completely different Ukrainian army than the one they knew in 2014. Junior commanders began to make decisions independently, small units quickly adapted to changes on the battlefield, and military personnel improvised when initial plans failed.
Ukrainian commanders have also gained significant combat experience. However, Hertling believes that this transformation should not be attributed solely to Western assistance: “We did not turn the Ukrainian army into an American one. The Ukrainians made it their own and made it extremely flexible in training and adaptation.“
Today, he said, Western military forces are already studying the Ukrainian experience. This includes, in particular, the use of drones, electronic warfare, combat intelligence and the ability to quickly adapt tactics to the situation. At the same time, the general admits that Ukraine's political transformation remains far more complex. Corruption has not been completely eradicated, and debates about governance, accountability and the relationship between parliament and the presidency continue, UNIAN reports.
However, Hertling emphasizes one important distinction: in his opinion, Ukraine is not a system built around corruption. The country has investigative journalists, law enforcement agencies and anti-corruption agencies, political opponents can criticize the government, and citizens protest even during a full-scale war. According to the American general, this is precisely one of Ukraine's main achievements over the years of independence.