As a result of the Crimean invasion, which is being lavishly fêted on the streets of Moscow today, approximately 16,000 Ukrainian security personnel were absorbed into Russian forces, Global Security reports . Thanks to a dire lack of funding, the Ukrainian armed forces have no training in this type of conflict.
In a near-continuous series of wars between 1768 and 1856 she and the tsars who followed her seized much of modern day Ukraine, and learned to tax the roads that carried life-giving grain to the Black Sea.
Conflict in Ukraine appears unlikely to shake Federal Reserve officials from their plans to pull back support for the economy at this point, but the rapid escalation in tension is sure to draw policymaker attention and could make for even higher inflation in the near term.
The “sovietized” nature of Ukraine’s forces is also the reason why so many Ukrainian soldiers switched sides when the conflict in Crimea erupted. With no unifying national military tradition to rally behind, many Ukrainian forces, like the 25th airborne brigade, readily laid down arms before the Russian separatists.
Ukrainian armed forces did participate in NATO peacekeeping missions in the Balkans in the '90s, “ but that didn’t sharpen their sense of how to function in Ukraine,” says Kipp. “If you’re doing things with NATO, and you don’t have a lot of money, it’s easier to invest in NATO exercise than it is to invest in exercises for your own military ...