Commander of Ukraine's Joint Forces Serhiy Nayev says that should Russia wage large-scale war, Ukraine's victory will depend on the Ukrainian people's unity and international partners' consistency.
"In the case of possible full-scale aggression, our success will depend not only on the resilience of the soldiers and officers, but also on the consolidation of the Ukrainian people, the consistency of our allies and international partners, because such a threat can only be dealt jointly," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian daily newspaper Fakty.
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The commander admits that the advantage is on the side of the Russian army in terms of personnel and military hardware.
He also says that today's Ukrainian army is much stronger than the one that was in 2014.
"Of course, a full-scale invasion is not positional warfare with permanent shelling. But! The Ukrainian army of the year 2019 is not poorly equipped and incomplete brigades and battalions that faced open aggression five years ago. The Armed Forces of Ukraine over the years have strengthened quantitatively and, most importantly, qualitatively: they have gained experience, received the latest weapons and changed tactics of actions," Nayev said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that the Ukrainian army would be able to act fully in accordance with NATO standards as early as in 2020. "In 2020, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be structured and will be able to act in full accordance with NATO standards, as is stipulated in the [Ukrainian] law on national security," he said early in January 2019.
"Our army is capable of deterring the enemy, which is considerably stronger, and this is not the limit of our capabilities. The army has been increasing its strength, an amount exceeding 5% of GDP is being allocated from the budget for defense and security," he said.
