Former Chief of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine Victor Hvozd Says, “I Want Peacekeeping Missions Never to Have to Be Deployed at the Territory of Ukraine”

Annually on the 29th of May the International UN Peacekeepers’ Day is marked in the whole world – the holiday initiated by Ukraine. This year this day is special for Ukraine, as our country is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its participation in the UN peacekeeping operations. On the eve of the holiday we met the person, who apart from taking immediate part in the peacekeeping activity in the staff of the Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent, was representing our state at the UN Headquarters in New York, as a member of Ukraine’s delegation in the UN Security Council.

It is General – Lieutenant Victor Hvozd, former Chief of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine. He is an unordinary man. He speaks many foreign languages, Chinese included, he had served in the Armed Forces for more than 30 years, in 1993-1995 he was in UN peacekeeping missions at the territory of former Yugoslavia, he was the first Ukraine’s military attaché  in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2000-2002 he was a member of the Ukrainian delegation at the UN Security Council. On his return to Ukraine he worked at different posts in the security sphere at the Administration of the President of Ukraine. From 2008 to 2010 he was the Chief of the Ukraine’s Military Intelligence. In 2010 he retired from military service.

Despite the specifics of his profession and course of life, he did agree to comment on and give his estimation of Ukraine’s 20 years of participation in UN peacekeeping operations. More to that, as we found out, Victor Hvozd has a direct relation to the establishment of this holiday – the International UN Peacekeepers’ Day.

Since the 29th of May 2003 the International UN Peacekeepers’ Day has been celebrated all over the world. The adoption of the UN resolution on establishing it took place at the time when you were working at the Permanent Mission (PM) of Ukraine to the UN in New York. Could you kindly say a few words about the circumstances at which the United Nations were making the decision to celebrate this day?

As a matter of fact, the decision was made without any previous preparations, impromptu. And it all happened only thanks to the fact that in 2000 Ukraine became a member of the most authoritative UN’s body concerning the support of security and peace – UN Security Council. The events themselves were developing as follows. In May of 2001 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Anatoliy Maksymovych Zlenko was conducting a meeting with the diplomatic staff of the PM of Ukraine to the UN in New York, in which I was taking part as the Representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine at PM of Ukraine in regard to possible initiatives which Ukraine could put forward for its more solid work in the UN Security Council. At that council, among a number of other initiatives, an idea suddenly arose: why not to mark the peacekeepers’ activity by a special holiday? At that time there already existed quite a few UN’s days. But none of them was celebrating such important activity as that of the peacekeepers. Despite the fact, that over the last 50 years of peacekeeping, more than 1750 peacekeepers lost their lives, 20 Ukrainians included.

Representatives of not all the countries supported our idea at once. I believe, it was not because the idea was not worth their attention, but because it was put forward by Ukraine, a young state, whose history of participation in the UN operations made hardly 10 years, and which was among the Security Council members.

Though Ukraine already then had its own weight – by that time we had made into the ten greatest contributors of peacekeepers contingents to the UN operations. More so, in 2000 Ukraine actually rescued the UN mission in Sierra – Leone by having sent there a heavy battalion, many units of fighting and special military equipment, a helicopter squadron. By the way, in all their so called propaganda materials, the UN headquarters officials always present the UN mission in Sierra – Leone as an example of successful realization of peacekeeping programs (which in the history of peacekeeping does not happen too often).

So we had all the morale right to come up with such an initiative. We were supported by India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan and a number of other countries of Asia and Africa, which historically have always been sending the largest contingents for peacekeeping missions. Besides, we suggested that all who wished could join our initiative, and that removed all the obstacles in the way of the realization of the idea. On the 12th of February the Deputy Representative of Ukraine in the UN Volodymyr Krokhmal’ during the session of the UN Special Committee of Peacekeeping Operations (PCO) addressed the UN member-countries, “Ukraine suggests to proclaim the International UN Peacekeepers’ Day in order to celebrate all those who took and keep taking part in peacekeeping operations under the UN’s flag, and also to honor the memory of those who gave up their lives for the sake of peace”. And in December of 2002 at the 57th session of the UN General Assembly the resolution introduced by our delegation was unanimously approved. Since then the 29th of May has been the International UN Peacekeepers’ Day (on this day in 1948 the UN Security Council approved the Resolution 50 (III) about the deployment of the first peacekeeping operation – the UN control body to check the fulfillment of the terms of the armistice in Palestine).

So from the idea to its realization, taking into consideration the extremely complicated bureaucratic mechanism of UN, not that much time had passed – not more than a year. It was our victory, and I, in my turn, had a feeling of great satisfaction and a sense of the fulfilled duty and was proud of Ukraine before my fellow servicemen, with whom we took part in peacekeeping operations, especially before the families of the dead, confirming yet again that they did not give up their lives in vain, but having sacrificed their own lives, they rescued thousands of others’ lives, and that they have not been forgotten.

There have been many debates about peacekeeping activity of Ukraine – whether Ukraine needs it or not. Supporters of the country’s participation in this process insist that thanks to peacekeeping the authority of our country at the international arena increases, the servicemen get unique experience… But to their opponents it all looks somewhat virtual. What real bonuses does Ukraine get from its participation in peacekeeping operations?

The state of Ukraine has to have political weight in the world, it is an axiom. But let us look at the things realistically: with what can Ukraine appeal to the international community at the moment? After the disintegration of the USSR, Russia took the part of its legitimate successor actually in all international organizations and in the world in general, remaining the key player at the geo-political chess board.  Ukraine also has signed all the main international agreements in various spheres, but let us agree that after 20 years of its independence its actual political weight leaves much to be desired. Ukraine has no influence on global world processes, apart from being an active player in the UN system, and as a result, – being an active participant of peacekeeping operations.

America will never give its contingents under some other country’s command. But being a serious player at the world arena, the USA does not need to persuade anybody in its capability. Though, on the other hand, it is the States that gives great sums of money on carrying out peacekeeping operations. Can Ukraine afford anything like that? No, it cannot. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan cannot finance peacekeeping actions either, but they contribute to this process by the participation of their contingents.

Some of the debating today state that Ukraine, having no money, pays for its citizens’ opportunity to participate in peacekeeping operations with those citizens’ lives, not getting any serious dividends. I do not agree with this. The participation of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in peacekeeping operations is useful, first of all for the Armed Forces themselves. It is common knowledge that a not fighting army exists only on paper. Thanks to the participation in these operations, our army can keep some level of its combat readiness. Let’s take, for example, our helicopter squadrons – thanks to their participation in many operations they have flown such a number of hours which in Ukraine they would have hardly flown. Our engineer subunits have also got a colossal experience. At the same time, to speak only about the fighting experience is incorrect as from our participation we get quite a concrete economic benefit – UN, as you know, compensates the participation of contingents in peacekeeping operations. For the participation of our battalion in Liberia, Congo, etc., serious financial means were coming and are coming, which should, in the first turn,  go on the maintain of high combat readiness of our AF.

Such participation is also politically useful, as it gives Ukraine new opportunities at the international arena. Thus, in 2000 we got into the Security Council, among other reasons, thanks to Ukraine’s being then one of the main contributors to the UN peacekeeping missions. That is why in the whole from its peacekeeping Ukraine benefits in three aspects: political, economic and military.

At the same time, another question is obvious: how effective can the activity in various spheres, peacekeeping included, be of the organization that is subject to crisis? Regarding your experience in the UN Security Council: from your point of view, can the UN today be an effective stage for discussing and making decisions on most urgent world problems? What “equality of voices” can we talk about?

The UN Security Council today is the main, head body in problems of war and peace. Whether you like it or not, but as of today the world community has not created another collective stage, supported by all representatives of the world community, for keeping peace between the confronted sides. Right, the SC, like the UN in the whole, was urgently created after the WWII to prevent the third world war. Lots of water has flown since then, the political map of the world itself has changed, the human community has faced new challenges, but the number of those who wish to settle both, inner and outer, conflicts by force, breaking the UN Statute and the norms of the international law, has not decreased. It is the UN Security Council who sanctions the opening of peacekeeping missions. There are five constant Council members and 10 temporary ones, which are elected for a two year term.

Though personally I think this system is out of date now. Because the economically – developed countries, like Germany, Japan, Brazil, which are not permanent members of the SC, could take constant places in this organization, – de-facto they have gained the appropriate political weight. The number of temporary members should be larger, so that important decisions would not be made behind the scenes, but as many countries as possible could be involved in this process. Naturally, the very process of decision making, as well as the procedure of voting should be changed.

Certainly, it is pointless to say that all the countries are equal. We can see it on the example of what is going on around Syria. The USA and Great Britain have one position regarding what is happening in that country, China and Russia‘s position is diametrically opposed. Permanent confrontation is taking place. Instead of looking for a way out of the critical situation together, each of them is playing its own geo-political game. Eventually they decided to deploy a peacekeeping mission in Syria, but the time had been lost, the conflict, like a cancerous growth had already put out metastases, and to settle it more efforts, money is needed , and perhaps the UN’s  potential  wont be enough. Then what – another Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya? Perhaps someone benefits from it? Draw the conclusions yourselves. We now have so many experts- machine-tool operators, who can produce most fantastic scenarios from the future world organization to the prospects of the housing and communal services of Brovary( a small town near Kyiv).

Returning to the question of the UN’s crisis, we inevitably come to the problem of the crisis of the UN’s peacekeeping activity. To me very significant was the fact of critics of the mentioned operation in Somali by Kofi Annan, a former UN General Secretary. According to his words, the operation was “ruined” already at the stage of its planning. I was really surprised when I accidentally found in Annan’s biography the fact that at the time when the operation in Somali was being planned, Kofi Annan himself was the assistant of the General Secretary in peacekeeping operations. Looks like this case is a model one: gradually, with not many successes, the history of the UN’s peacekeeping is turning into the history of fails. The reason for these fails is the approaches of the UN themselves.

Peacekeeping operations under the UN’s aegis have always been in the sight of critics, literally since Operation 1.Thus, the very first peacekeeping operation in the Near East is still going on, and all the time of its existence it has been criticized by everybody, the laziest included.

But let us look into it. Every operation has its political, military and civil components. Speaking about the military component, it is in the first turn, the contingents from different countries, gathered under the command of one commander, who (the contingents) don’t have the fighting harmony, who have different levels of training, technical equipment. The goals of the UN’s operations differ, and so do the operations themselves. In the past the UN peacekeeping operations had one task – to take apart the confronted sides, to serve as a sort of a bridge for the talks between the opposite sides of the conflict. If there is a political will for the talks between the sides, the operation could be a success. But in reality it is not so. Now the circle of the peacekeeping tasks has increased considerably. It includes contributing to peace, maintaining peace, forcing to peace, taking apart the confronted sides, etc. If we superimpose the problems, always emerging at organizing the activity of different national contingents in one operation, upon the unique peculiarities of each specific operation, we will get a great number of factors, influencing the final success of each mission.

Yes, it is a pity, that much fewer UN operations than we would like, have been successful. As an example of a successful operation we may take the operation in Sierra – Leone – it was a UN’s classical successful operation from beginning to end. And Ukraine played an important role in it, having strengthened its fighting and technical potential. At the territory of former Yugoslavia, for example, the confronted sides had to be forced to sit down at the table for talks. As an example of a non-effectiveness of the UN’s military component we may take the events of July 1995 in Srebreniza, a so called “UN security zone”. In Srebrenica, Holland’s battalion did not manage to defend the Bosnian refugees from the Bosnian Serbs. As a result, 8100 people were killed.

Two days later, after the attack by Bosnian Serbs of another “Security zone”- Zhepa, a small Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent did not allow a similar development of the events to happen, and as a result, all the wounded and civil people were evacuated into Sarajevo, and about one and a half thousand prisoners of war were later exchanged for Serbians. But as far as I remember, Bosnia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its press – release expressed a wish that the Ukrainian contingent should lead nearly a military operation against Serbians.

In this case we should admit that UN contingents don’t have a potential for the operations of forcing to peace. They have weapon which allows them to defend only themselves. They often don’t have aircraft, artillery, intelligence components, and that is why in operations like the ones carried out at the territory of former Yugoslavia, NATO forces or multinational forces have been used lately.

Nevertheless, in current peacekeeping operations a concrete – and far from being altruistic- interest can be traced, – the interest of certain countries in intruding into the situation in the third countries. As to Ukraine: do you think it should give her contingents at the UN’s first call or still consider its own interests in each particular case?

Surely, behind the curtain of each operation there stand political and economical interests of concrete countries, and everybody understands it very well. What happened in Libya, can serve as an example to the said above. A challenge of the modern time is the question of the control of the resources – food, energy, etc. Accordingly, to achieve some or other geo-strategic goals, I deeply believe, these or those states often use this or that security system. UN included.  Especially when in one or another region of the world conditions for foreign intruding appear, or better to say, are helped to appear.

Ukraine, in its turn, must be up to the existing realities. To ensure this, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should work actively, our intelligences should do what they are supposed to do, and to supply the state rulers with preventing information and prognoses of the development of the situation in crisis spots in time. The fighting readiness of our Armed Forces to deploy their contingent in any spot of the world within the shortest time limits should be maintained, especially as we are proud of our transport aviation.

So we need a serious approach to the questions concerning the participation of Ukrainian servicemen in peacekeeping operations. It should be thoroughly calculated, what political, military, economical dividends we can get as a result. Today Ukraine is an out-of-bloc state, so taking decisions about its participation in this or that peacekeeping operation it should according to its foreign policy course. But at the same time, our country has some international obligations which it must fulfill.

With the participation of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the operation of Multinational forces in Iraq, which began without a mandate of the UN Security Council, for the first time on the expert level the question arose of Kiev’s bringing upon itself a terrorist threat. In particular, they mean the possibility of the terrorist organizations’ attempts to “revenge” for such participation. Should Ukraine, carrying out its peacekeeping activity, take into consideration such threats?

No doubt, such risks should be born in mind. On the other side, at the moment the country can’t close its borders and not to be involved in global processes. The possibility of the terrorist threat should be always taken into consideration, but to stay off all the world processes would be also wrong. We should realize that participation in peacekeeping operations has both, positive and negative sides. If we totally give up our participation in peacekeeping operations, we will do harm to our national interests. As to the terrorist threat, I repeat, we should always be prepared.

I do not think that the recent explosions in Dnipropetrovsk have anything to do with our country’s international activity. Though only a fastest exposure of this crime can give the exact answer to this question.

Back to the question of the effectiveness of the UN peacekeeping, taking into consideration your comments: perhaps it would be right to involve in planning certain operations the servicemen of those countries, whose contingents are involved?

It should be noted here, that a political decision about deploying a peacekeeping operation is made by the UN Security Council, while the military planning of the operation – by the Department of the Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) of the UN Secretariat. Planning, preparing, deploying of peacekeeping missions have always been in the process of development. This process itself and the structures of the UN Secretariat have been reformed more than once. Thus, after another portion of critics on the UN’s address, concerning the effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations, in 2000 the Group’s on the UN Peacekeeping Operations Report, known also Brahimi’s Report are issued. That Report contained recommendations on radical changes, concerning the strategy, peacekeeping doctrine and peacekeeping operations.

It should be pointed out, that in year of 1992 alone, the Peacekeeping Operations Department was founded at the UN Headquarters. Before that such a structure did not exist. The DPKO took up all the organizational questions of planning and deploying of peacekeeping missions. Now this Department consists of representatives of different countries, representatives of Ukraine included. As far as I know, at the moment we do not occupy commanding posts there, but together with others we participate in planning and escorting missions.

As to the direct involving representatives of the world community in planning UN operations, we should note that more than one hundred countries have their diplomatic representations at the UN, and at many of such representations there are military advisers, who are involved in the planning of the peacekeeping operations. Exactly that post of a military adviser I occupied from 2000 to 2003, being a sort of a coordinator between the UN Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

That is why at the currently existing UN mechanism, which is constantly improving, military representatives of the UN – member countries to this or that extent participate in planning the military component of a peacekeeping operation.

And at the end of our talk: what do you wish our peacekeepers on this holiday?

I wish the most important: let Ukraine be active at the world arena, continue to participate in peacekeeping operations, but at that, let peacekeeping missions never have to be deployed on its territory. I wish the peacekeepers to carry with honor the high name of the “blue berets” under the Ukraine and UN flags and always return to their dear families.



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