Is Ukraine ashamed of its infamous military cooperation with Georgia?

Ukrainian border guards threw a grand arms fair. Agents accept orders for military hardware, while Ukrainian sailors express their protests. Last time, Ukraine's activities in the field of arms sales coincided with the bloody

Georgian-Ossetian conflict. Was it an accident? Georgia received most of its weapons and ammo from Ukraine.

This time, Ukrainian border guards received a permission from the government to arrange a large arms fair. According to local press reports, Ukraine will put up the oldest ship of the national navy, the Danube, for international auction along with two An-72 aircraft, a few helicopters, boats, torpedo launchers, and thousands of unnecessary cutlery: aluminum forks, pots and plates. As the Border Guard Service told journalists, the above-mentioned items, including pots and kettles, were morally and physically outdated.

It appears that the border authorities can not afford to fund and maintain the hardware: even kettles require anticorrosive painting and cleaning. Interestingly, Russian specialists attend the fair as supervisors. Indeed, too many things were left without control in 2007-2008, when Ukraine de facto became the main military supplier of Georgia's aggression.

Once burned, twice shy. Ukrainian border guards say through the words of their leaders that the arms will not be delivered to private persons. The hardware will either be sold abroad or decommissioned. As for airplanes, helicopters, pots and kettles - private traders may buy them well. Ukraine intends to spend the received money to build houses for border guards.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian sailors are concerned about the fate of the Austrian captured ship Danube, which was built in 1942. The ship is now docked in Izmail, the Odessa region. The vessel is often used for practical classes of the students of the Ukrainian Naval Lyceum. Actually, it was the Lyceum that was supposed to receive the Danube. This is the oldest ship of Ukraine. During the war, the ship served for Germany.

The Austrians, Hungarians and Poles have already showed interest in the Danube. Why not? The ship is in action, the body of the ship is in normal condition. It is about time one should make a museum out of it. The Danube can be sold at a very cheap price. Maintaining the vessel is too expensive for Ukraine - a year of service costs 350 000 hryvnas. Savvy foreigners may well figure out how to profit from the "vintage" ship.

Look at China: the country bought the body of the Soviet ship, Varyag, for scrap and used it to make its first-ever aircraft carrier. The Chinese have recently passed the former Varyag into service as the country's first aircraft carrier. It is an open secret that Ukraine can not afford building its own aircraft carrier. According to the Ukrainian press, agents already take orders for planes and helicopters. The customers are mostly private persons.

Let's recollect the story of four years ago. On June 7, 2008, then Defense Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Gritsenko stated that he wanted to sell the property of his department on the Internet. According to the Minister, the Ukrainian army had too much property and equipment at its disposal, especially small arms and tanks. The majority of those arms subsequently reappeared in Georgia.

Noteworthy, two years after the end of the peace-enforcement operation in Georgia, Saakashvili's regime restored Georgia's military potential with the help of the West. According to the UN, the current military potential of Georgia is considerably higher than it was during the time when Georgia attacked South Ossetia.

The international community has not accepted Russia's offer to introduce an international embargo on arms supplies to Georgia. The military potential was retrieved on three main directions: infrastructure (army bases and other military facilities), the purchase of military equipment and the improved training of the servicemen of the Georgian army.

Georgia chose Ukraine as a strategic ally in the supply of arms and military equipment. Ukraine carried out active arms supplies to Georgia, before Viktor Yanukovych took office as the President of Ukraine in 2010.

The Party of Regions used to suggest an embargo on arms supplies to Georgia. Moreover, the party offered to bring the arms suppliers to criminal responsibility. Nowadays, a special commission of the Ukrainian parliament said that such deliveries (including Grad volley-fire systems) had taken place indeed. The oddest thing is that some shipments were conducted under the direct decree of Viktor Yushchenko, to the detriment of the state budget of Ukraine.

It turned out that the military equipment had been sold to Georgia at reduced prices. It was also said that Pakistan wanted to buy the same air defense equipment at the price that was at least five times the price that Georgia paid for the same equipment.

The arms shipments were most intense during the period from May 27 to June 8, 2008. According to the conclusions of the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament) of Ukraine, the supplies were facilitated. The chairman of the commission presumed that the Ukrainian leadership knew what was being prepared, and Ukraine did its best to help Georgia.

Russia raised the question of supplies of Ukrainian weapons to Georgia in August. It was also reported that Ukraine was Georgia's key supplier of military equipment and weapons. Georgia also purchased weapons from Israel, Bulgaria, the USA, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Ukraine earned most from the modernized Soviet-era T-72 tanks. The Georgian military received 74 such armored vehicles, reequipped to meet NATO standards. Georgia paid one million dollars for each of those tanks.

According to the UN report, on the eve of the conflict, in 2007 and 2008, Georgia imported 74 tanks, six armored vehicles, nine large caliber artillery systems, eight aircraft, 10,800 missiles and launch systems, as well as 28,800 guns. From this list, Ukraine provided for the delivery of all tanks, armored vehicles and aircraft.

In addition, in 2007, Ukraine exported to Georgia five artillery systems, 495 missiles and launchers, as well as nearly 20,000 units of firearms. Given the market value of the equipment and weapons, the Ukrainian sellers received more than $100 million from their Georgian partners in 2007. Moreover, according to various sources, it was the USA that gave Georgia long-term loans. In 2007, Georgia acquired more than 10 percent of Ukrainian military goods.

During the conflict in August 2008, South Ossetia accused Ukraine of illegal arms supplies to Georgia. In addition, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that Ukraine's military supplies to Georgia contributed to ethnic cleansing and the Georgian intervention in South Ossetia.

Andrey Mikhailov

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian