The desire to demonstrate their successes in military reform to the president could backfire on the Defense Ministry's leadership. The military's nutritional experiment, which officials are conducting, is becoming increasingly fraught with scandalous details. The inept attempts of the rear services to justify themselves only heighten the absurdity of the situation, hastening the inevitable failure of the adventure into which the minister and his entourage have drawn him.
This week, MP Dmytro Tymchuk published a report by Chief of the General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, addressed to the minister. The report outlines the preliminary results of an experiment to eliminate outsourcing services and reintroduce military cooks to army cafeterias (the experiment is being conducted at the National Academy of the Ground Forces in Lviv and the Western Naval Base in Odesa).
The report details the overpayment for military food services, which arose due to the refusal to outsource. Specifically, in Lviv, the cost per soldier per day, including the salaries of "military cooks" and utilities, increased from UAH 60,48 to UAH 65,31. In Odesa, it increased from UAH 60,72 to UAH 66,23.
As a result, the overspending on food during the experiment reached 8%, amounting to UAH 3,4 million in Lviv and UAH 1,3 million in Odesa. According to General Staff estimates, the experiment cost UAH 4,7 million in budget funds. And this is far from the final figure.
Expanding the experiment to all military units, the General Staff claims, will require an additional budget allocation of approximately 5 billion hryvnias. The Information Resistance group calls this figure underestimated.
Surprisingly, despite these experimental results and excessive budget expenditures, in 2016, as follows from the document, it was decided to continue it in 9 military units.
Former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anatoly Gritsenko Gritsenko points out that to return to the military cook system, the army would need to recruit more than 25,000 contract soldiers and organize a training system for them. "Think about it, you would-be experimenters. 25200 military cook positions equal six full-fledged combat brigades, which you want to cut for the sake of your foolish plans? Or are you proposing to increase the size of the Armed Forces so that the entire country would have to collect additional billions from family budgets for their upkeep?"
Well-known blogger Kirill Sazonov points out an even more scandalous detail: the additional 5 billion won't affect the quality of food. As the journalist's visit to military units in Odesa revealed, outsourced food providers are currently providing food no worse than experimental cafeterias. But cheaper! The journalist is confident that Ukrainians will pay the extra billions for the generals' reformist ambitions.
During a hastily organized press conference, Defense Ministry representatives were forced to acknowledge that Muzhenko's report published by Tymchuk was credible. However, Diana Petrenya, a representative of the Ministry of Defense's Project Reform Office, called the figures cited in it "preliminary," claiming they were obtained back in the fall. However, the data from a more recent audit presented by Colonel Mykola Kuklyuk, Deputy Head of the Central Food Supply Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is virtually identical to those cited in Muzhenko's report. In Lviv, the experimental food cost 65,65 hryvnias, while in Odesa, it cost 64 hryvnias.
Kuklyuk openly admitted that military cooks are too expensive for the budget. According to him, the 5 billion rubles the budget will pay for expanding the experiment could be even higher, as the number of military units has increased recently—almost all of them require utensils and equipment.
“It is too expensive for the Armed Forces and for the state as a whole to introduce military chefs,” he said.
But why then are military chefs needed? Defense Ministry representatives were unable to answer this question. Mykola Kuklyuk defended himself: "The unit commander knows best how to feed his personnel. He can't command employees of an outsourcing company. But military chefs—no problem." The official cited the experience of Ukrainian peacekeeping contingents. However, his words suggest otherwise.
"I was in Liberia. You can order potatoes unpeeled in a net there. But the American catalog says: 'Whole peeled potatoes, vacuum-packed,' 'Peeled and cut into strips, vacuum-packed,' and 'Peeled and cut into fancy strips, vacuum-packed.' The price for these is 60 cents, while the fancy-cut ones are 95 cents. So our cooks, to avoid peeling and cutting, ordered them already processed, which meant 35 cents were wasted. The same thing with juices: to avoid pouring them into glasses, they ordered them in 200-gram individual packaging. As a result, the rations ended up being small. I arrived, and they said it was too little, not enough. I looked at the order and said, 'Comrade Commander, why are you allowing this to happen?' And he said, 'Holy cow, I wasn't paying attention.'" “The savings per soldier amounted to 1,5 euros per day,” recalls Kuklyuk.
According to Colonel Oleksandr Andrukh, Head of the Central Directorate for Food Supply of the Rear of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, commanders of military units in the ATO zone are also often unable to organize a food system for their subordinates, despite the fact that they receive sufficient food supplies from outsourcing companies.
"The unit commander is responsible for organizing meals during combat operations and in the field," the official says. "The unit commander must organize meals for the company, platoon, and squad. Food is delivered to him, and he then organizes logistical support for all his subordinates. It's at this level that problems arise."
Logistics officers essentially admit that unit commanders are incompetent in organizing meals. That behind their backs, supply chiefs and military cooks are rigging the food supply, and soldiers are the ones suffering. Nevertheless, the Central Directorate of Logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine proposes expanding this system to all military units that may be involved in combat missions.
Where is the logic, one wonders?
Gritsenko asserts that the outsourcing system operates in all NATO armies, where civilians "reliably and efficiently feed soldiers, based on tenders and contracts, both in peacetime and in combat (Afghanistan, Iraq)." The Defense Ministry's Logistics Center counters, claiming that in the American army, feeding a soldier costs $15 per day. They say it's clear that an outsourcing company would go to great lengths for that kind of money. And 60 hryvnias isn't attractive. Our outsourcers aren't interested. But was a tender ever held for feeding soldiers in frontline units, with the associated risks spelled out in the terms? It turns out... no. The Project Office provides no evidence of outsourcers refusing to participate in such a tender. They simply say, "We offered it to them, but they didn't want it." To whom, and when? Why is a strategic conclusion being drawn, based on some essentially private contacts, that Ukrainian outsourcers, unlike American ones, cannot work in “hot spots”?
Colonel Andrukh recounts that during the ATO, outsourcers repeatedly delivered food to units with which the military (!) had lost contact. "There were major problems with food delivery. We must give credit to outsourcing—they managed to deliver food to places where the military couldn't," he said.
When describing the experiment, the Project Office decided to distance itself entirely from the topic of military cooks, who are supposedly needed at the front but whose "testing" is taking place, for some reason, deep in the rear. According to Diana Petrenya, the main goal of the experiment is to expand the range of products on soldiers' menus. Previously, there were fewer than forty, but now, according to official documents, there are 248. But this is a fiction: in practice, the number of products is still no more than eighty. The only exception might be the Lviv training ground, which is actively used for the usual "show-off." It is from this military unit that photos of red fish and pineapples on soldiers' plates "have" appeared online. Furthermore, the question arises: why can't outsourcers use the expanded experiment?
"Instead of combat training, command will have to spend time and effort organizing personnel meals, renovating canteens, maintaining food records, and so on. If, under outsourcing, the responsible officer only needed to monitor the service received from the civilian company—that is, the end result, the soldier's ration—then under the experiment, everything will become much more complicated. Receiving food, storing it in the warehouse, distributing it, preparing it—all these stages will complicate the control process so much that they will inevitably lead to its deterioration. Consequently, there is a risk of theft and corruption. And a corrupt military officer is easy prey for enemy intelligence services. And this is not just a loss of money; it is much more serious," says Kirill Sazonov.
Experts believe that the irrational arguments of some officials may be hiding a desire to build a corrupt system. Any commander who is given the power to order whatever products they want, from oranges to shashlik, has his own superiors. And this entire chain of command reaches all the way to the Ministry of Defense. Perhaps there's a simpler explanation? Did some general decide to take control of food distribution to military units?
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