С Новым годом, армия!
In this part of the world, gifts are presented at the New Year. It is no different for the Ukrainian Army as gifts have just arrived for the forces at the front lines. Today the Ukrainian Army received more new tanks, armoured vehicles, transport trucks, and much needed supplies for soldiers.
During the Yanukovich administration and previous Ukrainian governments, little to no funding was provided for updating equipment and regular troop training exercises. Much needed reforms were never initiated, and so the aging Soviet equipment handed down to Ukraine was in a state of severe stagnation.
In contrast, across the border Russia was using oil revenues for modernization of Russia’s military.
Upgrading Ukraine’s military capabilities might well have prevented the illegal and immoral annexation of Crimea by Russia in early 2014.
Significantly, Ukrainian defense forces say that American targeting systems have arrived. Until now, the Ukrainian Army had no modern system to detect the location from where rockets were being fired. Knowing this, Russian and pro-Russian troops would hide behind apartment buildings, thus forcing the Ukrainian forces to guess range and direction of in-coming fire.
Now they hope to be able to more accurately pin-point the location of enemy fire, and exercise greater precision when returning fire.