Kyiv, November 24, 2015. Training course for Ukrainian infantry has started in Lviv region guided by the military instructors from the U.S., Canada and Lithuania. The course is set to train the ground forces based on army standards of the leading countries. Five Ukrainian battalions of the mechanized brigades will take part in the training. The course is designed to cover the period until 2017, said Ukraine’s Defense Ministry spokesperson Colonel Viktoria Kushnir at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “The training program includes tactics, firearms training, tactical medicine, communications, explosive ordnance disposal etc. About 500 servicemen from the U.S., Canada and Lithuania will work as instructors,” she explained.
International anticorruption week is being held for the first time in Ukraine at the Ivan Chernyakhovsky National Defense University with support of the UK Ministry of Defense. Colonel Kushnir noted that the event aims at working out suggestions that would reinforce anticorruption activities in Ukraine and implement activities of the Anticorruption Action Plan within the Defense Ministry and Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2015-2017. “The Ministry has defined basic approaches for combatting corruption. The institution was among the first to have adopted the Anticorruption Program. International partners also helped set up the academic center for corruption prevention and counteraction,” said the Defense Ministry spokeswoman. She also said the Center held over 10 anticorruption sessions both stationary and field ones over the last year. Field sessions were also held in the ATO zone. The course reached out to over 300 persons.
One of the Ministry’s latest achievements in the area is the use of polygraph in interviewing all officials considered as candidates for high-level positions. Polygraph specialists have undergone a training program designed by the National Academy of Security Service and by the Ukrainian Bureau of Psychophysical Research. “From now on each candidate before his/her appointment to the managerial position will undergo a polygraph interview,” reassured Colonel Kushnir.
She also said that the President of Ukraine had signed the Law that reinforces employer’s liability in case he/she violates the guarantees of an employee called on military duty. The document sets a fine for the employer in the amount of 10 minimum salaries to be paid to each employee whose rights were violated. It also establishes administrative liability for officials in the amount varying from 50 to 100 non-taxable incomes (between UAH 850 and UAH 1700).
