Special Ops Bill progresses through VR Committee stage

BY NIKOLAI HOLMOV 

Absent the headlines in the domestic media, Draft Bills 4795 and 4563 which equate to about 12 months of dialogue between the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, the Ukrainian Special Operations Command, the National Security Council and representatives from the US SOCOM Command, NATO Liaison Office, US Special Operations Forces, together with Lithuanian and UK input has finally made it through the National Security and Defence Committee of the Verkhovna Rada.

The draft Bills seek to amendment the current statute relating to special forces and special operations, bringing statute and ensuring the most effective use of special operations forces capabilities, as well as a clear and rational allocation of their functions, command structure, tasks and responsibilities (both home and abroad), in line with that of generally accepted NATO norms.

It can be reasonably expected that it will be swiftly submitted for Verkhovna Rada consideration and subsequent vote, as the amendments are sponsored by 9 cross party parliamentarians (including Hope Shavchenko for those readers fixated upon her political rise or fall) as well as the entirety of the Verkhovna Rada National Security and Defence Committee.

Something of a certain parliamentary passage for once it appears.

Thereafter, it will be a matter of creating an esprit de corps generally associated with elite units – and also the training, equipping and paying of such personnel beyond the “standard issue”.

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