After 2014, the Ukrainian authorities increasingly began to declare their desire to join NATO. The Ukrainians themselves on this score were divided into two opposite camps.
The desire to join the alliance remains unfulfilled, but the government of the Ukrainian state is seeking to transfer the armament of its troops to NATO standards.
The main argument against Ukraine's entry into the organization is the requirement for a transition to uniform standards in terms of military equipment and weapons, the structure of command and control of troops and their training.
For example, if we talk about small arms, then instead of the usual calibers 9x18 millimeters for pistols and 5, 45x39 and 7, 62x54 mm for machine guns, machine guns and rifles, standards 9x19, 5, 56x45 and 7, 62x51 mm should come.
As opponents of the country's entry into the ranks of the organization note, the transition to uniform standards in armament is very expensive. Moreover, this can cause a crisis in the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, because weapons of completely different standards are produced here. And the transfer of military enterprises to the production of NATO-type products will cost an even greater amount.
In fact, even if a state becomes a member of NATO, it is given a certain time to adapt, and often it uses the weapons that it has. In particular, this applies to the Eastern European states, which were previously members of the Warsaw Pact Organization and had their own standards (which, by the way, are used by Ukraine), as well as a large number of Soviet-style weapons.
In order not to be unfounded, there are several examples. In particular, the Hungarian army, which has been a NATO member since 1999, uses T-72 tanks as its main combat vehicles, while Romania, which joined NATO in 2004, only recently announced its intention to swap Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifles for Italian Beretta assault rifles. ARX-160, which, by the way, can be used for Soviet cartridges of 7, 62x39 millimeters.
Thus, it is quite obvious that all the arguments of the opponents of Ukraine's entry into the ranks of the alliance about the need for rearmament and the possible collapse of the domestic defense industry are groundless.
It should be noted that along with rearmament under uniform standards, a kind of reverse process is taking place: many countries use NATO weapons without being members of the alliance. This process is typical for Ukraine as well.
For example, the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard were the first on the path to organization. Almost four years ago, in 2015, A. Avakov made an announcement about purchases of American-made "Barrett" sniper rifles of 12.7x99 mm caliber for the needs of the National Guard.
On the other hand, it should be noted that in almost all countries, police structures and special forces are much more flexible in the choice of weapons and can use even those models that are not officially in service with the army. Due to this, the leadership of the National Guard, headed by S. Knyazev, has the opportunity to declare that his department intends to switch from the shortened Kalashnikov assault rifle and Makarov pistol, which is familiar to police officers, to new weapons.
In search of a replacement for Kalashnikov …
It should be said that rearmament is almost the main topic for the entire period of the armed conflict in Donbas. On the one hand, those mobilized say that the Kalashnikov assault rifle suits them quite well, since it is reliable and differs in its cheapness. In addition, there are a lot of these weapons in the warehouses of the Ukrainian army. On the other hand, according to experts, the problem lies in the fact that the AK does not meet the requirements of modern combat, if we talk about professional use.
The understanding of the discrepancy between the assault rifle (AK-47, AKM, AKMS, etc.) is gradually coming to the leadership of power structures not only in Ukraine. So, Vietnam was the first to abandon this weapon, switching to Israeli models. Not so long ago, Romania announced its intention to abandon the AK, as mentioned above.
If we talk about the situation in Ukraine, then it must be said that Ukrainian gunsmiths are looking for ways to adapt old samples to new standards. For example, the enterprise "Fort" (Vinnitsa) has launched the production of kits for body kit, due to which it became possible to adjust the machine guns for each individual soldier. We are talking about a variant of the TK-9 tactical kit, in which the muzzle compensator was replaced with a similar one, but of its own production, and the wooden plate for the gas tube and forend was replaced with modern ones, made of aluminum alloy.
The cover is equipped with a base on top for attaching sights, on the bottom - handles for transferring fire, on the side - an underbarrel flashlight and a laser sight. The fuse was replaced so that it could be operated with one finger. The wooden butt was replaced with a telescopic one, and the old grip was replaced with an ergonomic pistol grip. But perhaps the most important is the receiver cover, equipped with a Picatinny rail, which is essentially a bracket for mounting bipods, additional sights, laser designators and tactical flashlights.
There is also another option for modernization - according to the bullpup scheme. In this case, it makes sense to recall the domestically produced machine "Malyuk". Initially, this sample was supposed to be an updated version, but currently there are talks about starting its own production. Moreover, the manufacturer says that in this sample of weapons up to 70 percent of the components are produced in Ukraine, and even the production of the most high-tech part of the weapon - the barrel - has been mastered.
On the other hand, a massive transition to this model in the army has not yet been observed. From the zone of the armed conflict several times photos flashed with these machine guns, and even then in the hands of the special forces.
It is noteworthy that over the past several years, a variant of the so-called hybrid rearmament has been actively promoted, the essence of which boils down to the fact that the weapons should be Western, and the cartridge for them should be domestic (or, more precisely, Soviet). Enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industry are attempting to launch the production of the automatic M4 - WAC-47 carbine using the 7.62x39 mm cartridge. As part of the implementation of this program, 10 such carbines were purchased in 2018, equipped with collimator sights and silencers, as well as several LMT M203 / L2D underbarrel grenade launchers.
Thus, we can say that certain works are being carried out, but whether they will go beyond talks is still unclear.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine also looks towards NATO
Speaking directly about the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the situation here is somewhat different. Even before 2014, the Vinnitsa enterprise "Fort" launched the production of a number of samples of weapons of Israeli origin - submachine guns "Fort-224", "Fort-226", machine guns "Fort-221", "Fort-227", sniper rifle "Fotr -301 "and a light machine gun" Fotr-401 ".
At the same time, all these samples were extremely poorly received by the National Guards. Moreover, the mass production was never launched. The main reason for this is that under pressure from Russia, Israel in 2014 actually curtailed cooperation with Ukraine in the military-technical sector.
But the police leadership did not stop this, and at the end of last year, a statement was made about the launch of a line for the production of casings and bullets for cartridges of 9x19 mm caliber (for Luger) and 9x18 mm (for Makarov).
Moreover, not so long ago, the police leadership announced their intention to re-equip the National Guard by 90 percent and abandon Kalashnikov assault rifles in favor of the German Heckler-Koch MP5 submachine guns. This decision is quite expected and timely. The choice is quite decent, because the German model has been produced since the 1960s and has managed to establish itself as a cheap and reliable weapon. It is used in more than 5 dozen countries around the world, and in some of them it is even released under license.
But the problem is that literally the next day after S. Knyazev's statement, representatives of the German manufacturer of these weapons (Heckler & Koch) announced that no negotiations were under way regarding the supply of MP-5 to Ukraine. By the way, there is a quite logical explanation for this: the fact is that at the beginning of the year the company was fined more than $ 4 billion for the supply of small arms (we are talking about G36 assault rifles) to Mexico, bypassing sanctions. The court ruled to violate German legislation to restrict arms exports to crisis countries. After such a court decision, hardly any German company will dare to supply weapons to Ukraine, where there has been virtually no peace for 5 years.
But, on the other hand, the submachine gun is officially, under license, produced in Turkey. And if we take into account that there is a very active cooperation between the two countries in the field of the military-industrial complex (a contract worth 69 million dollars for the supply of missiles, control stations and drones of Turkish production Bayraktar TB2 to Ukraine), then such a deal is unlikely to be big. obstacles. Perhaps one of the few disadvantages of such a deal will be the cost of submachine guns - about 75 thousand hryvnia per unit.
Thus, all these delays and problems indicate that, in addition to the desire to switch to NATO standards, funding plays an important role, as well as the desire of the producing countries to supply such weapons.
Purchase of NATO weapons abroad
It must be said that the Ukrainian army has been using imported weapons and equipment since 2015. But this is a few purchases, the transfer of weapons as military aid, which, by and large, cannot radically change the situation and help move to the standards of the alliance. This is possible only at the legislative level. At the beginning of this year, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a draft law in the second reading, which, according to its authors, should help eliminate Ukroboronprom as an intermediary in the procurement of imported weapons, which was a condition for the continued provision of military assistance by the American side.
On the other hand, according to experts, the funds allocated by the United States to Ukraine are practically useless, because only a small part of this money goes directly to rearmament. The rest is spent on servicing American-style weapons.
Despite the fact that the adopted bill actually gives the green light for the purchase of weapons that meet NATO standards, a logical question arises: what can Ukraine buy to meet the requirements? Armored vehicles, tanks, anti-tank missile systems and small arms immediately disappear, the reserves of which are abundant in military warehouses and which are successfully produced and exported by the domestic defense industry.
What Ukrainian troops really need are ships, helicopters and airplanes, for which the country does not have a sufficient base. But the fact is that such deals will be very, very expensive. So, for example, in 2018, information appeared that Denmark agreed to sell 3 Flyuvefisken vessels (multipurpose ships) to Ukraine. Despite the fact that their age reaches three decades, the amount of the deal was announced at the same time - 102 million euros.
New aircraft can cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, so they are unlikely to be available to the Ukrainian military budget. In addition, even without the capacity to produce its own aircraft and helicopters, Ukraine has a solid repair potential for servicing the existing air force fleet. So there is no need to talk about the purchase of aviation equipment.
The Ukrainian army also needs means of tracking, detection and communication, some of which the Ukrainian military-industrial complex can produce on its own.
It should also be remembered that the transition to common standards of the alliance is not only rearmament, it is the compatibility of the Ukrainian armed forces with the armies of other countries: linguistic, procedural, technical. This is a very ambitious and time-consuming task. Therefore, it is simply pointless to say that Ukraine will completely switch to NATO standards by 2020, as announced by the government.
