Publication

This paper argues that the defeats suffered by Ukrainian forces in the 2014/2015 conflict against pro-Russian separatists in the eastern of part the country show how badly under-trained, under-equipped and underfunded Ukraine's army is. The author first describes the evolution of the Ukrainian armed forces since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, before going on to discuss the fighting in Eastern Ukraine in 2014/15. She concludes that following independence, Ukraine's armed forces had not been set up to engage in fully-fledged war on their territory and badly need reforms to establish a modern and professional army.