President Victor Yushchenko believes that appointing Yuri Yekhanurov on the post of the Defence Minister instead of Anatoliy Hrytsenko will speed up the reform of the army.

“I base upon the position that the army needs a fresh blood”, he said in an interview with TV 5 Kanal, commenting on his decision to propose the candidacy of Yekhanurov for DefMin.

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“Particularly, the person, who will look at the system of the Defence Minister’s work in another way, will improve the financial flows, will optimize the property system of the structures, which are based at the economics of the Defence Ministry”, Ukrayinska Pravda quotes the President as saying.

According to his words, it is necessary “to make the Defence Ministry more responsible for fighting capacity, than for kolkhozes, sovkhozes, forestry enterprises, 42 plants on repair of somebody or something”.

“But, the system that we have now, are circumstances, which call in question our moving towards the contract system from the year 2010”, stressed Yushchenko.

“The Defence Minister is now the reform Minister. If we leave it at that, it will be a big mistake to over-accentuate on finance”, the President thinks.

“That is why, it is necessary  to bring the fresh eye”, said Yushchenko. According to his words, it is necessary to undertake “rather unique steps” on sensible issues – finance sphere, organization. “I am sure that it will be a very serious revision”, he thinks.

At the same time, Yushchenko underlined that the change of the candidacy for the post of the Defence Minister – “it is not a step against the Minister, not the step against the reliable staff, particularly, high leaders”.

“I am sure that every high worthy minister from the previous staff of the government will find the place and will be provided with the worthy place for applying his qualities”, he promised.