StateWatch has received the full text of the Adapted Annual National Programme presented at the first meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council on 29 November in Brussels. The document is an auxiliary tool for preparing Ukraine for accelerated negotiations on accession to the Alliance. NATO, in turn, agreed on an adapted programme containing specific tasks until the end of 2024. In this publication, we focus on the key reforms in the anti-corruption area of the programme, the dynamics of which will be monitored by our analysts within the SADR project.
Transparency and accountability
One of the priority anti-corruption goals of the document is to build integrity, increase transparency and accountability in Ukraine’s defence and security sector. To this end, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the National Agency on Corruption Prevention and other state actors in the sector should implement several clear tasks in line with NATO standards by 2024, in particular to:
StateWatch notes the government’s strong commitment to implementing these measures. In particular, the transfer of defence procurement functions from MoD departments to newly created service agencies have already begun. Since June 2023, the Defence Procurement Agency is responsible for the purchase of weapons and military equipment, and the new team of the MoD, led by Rustem Umerov, is preparing corporate reform measures. And on December 1, the State Logistics Operator Agency was launched to procure products for the Armed Forces of Ukraine on behalf of the MoD.
Military-industrial complex reform
According to the programme, Ukraine also intends to reform the military-industrial complex by adapting NATO’s best approaches and practices in terms of transparency, accountability, efficiency and competitiveness. Indicators of the successful completion of this task in 2024 include the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On the Development of the Defence Industry” and the corporatisation of at least 16 companies of the military-industrial complex. Ukraine began this path with the corporatisation of the state concern Ukroboronprom, on the basis of which the new Joint Stock Company Ukrainian Defence Industry was formed. In the future, the state-owned enterprises that were part of the concern should also be transformed into business companies. This will help build a more efficient, transparent, competitive and innovative model for the development, production, modernisation and repair of weapons, military and special equipment in line with NATO standards.
Instead, StateWatch reminds that one of the key measures of the Ukrainian Defence Industry corporate reform is the formation of an independent and professional supervisory board, which is currently absent.
It is also important to note that the annual programme requires the formation of the state military-industrial and military-technical policy, taking into account the best practices and experience of NATO member states; as well as planned measures to achieve institutional interoperability of the components of the security and defence sector of Ukraine and NATO. Thus, within the framework of the adapted programme, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) should study military standards implemented by the Ministry of Defence, as well as NATO military and doctrinal documents for their further application in the operational activities of the SSU bodies and units.
This material was developed under the Support Adaptive Defence Reforms project led by the UK Special Defence Advisor Team (SDA), funded from the British Government’s Integrated Security Fund (ISF) budget. The project delivery partners are EDGE-Alinea International and StateWatch.
