Armed forces

When Ukraine declared independence in August 1991 the Verkhovna Rada voted to assume jurisdiction over all the armed forces of the USSR located on Ukrainian territory. These included land, air, air defence and naval forces, including around 720,000 military personnel, 180,000 civilian defence employees, the Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol and the world’s third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Officers and conscripts from other parts of the USSR who did not wish to swear allegiance to Ukraine were assisted in returning to their home republics. Since then a radical process of restructuring and modernisation of Ukraine’s armed forces has been taking place, and the number of armed forces personnel has been greatly reduced. At present, as in the Soviet era, there is compulsory military service in Ukraine, but a gradual transition towards fully professional armed forces is under way.

After a lengthy dispute with Russia concerning the Black Sea Fleet, agreement on the division of the fleet was finally reached. Ukraine agreed to drop its claim to the whole fleet in return for debt relief, and retained a share of around 18%. It was also agreed that Russia could continue to operate a naval base in Sevastopol under a 20-year leasing arrangement ending in 2017.

In 1994 Ukraine signed a Trilateral Agreement with the USA, Russia and the United Kingdom under which it undertook to transfer all nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory to Russia for destruction, in return for certain security guarantees, compensation for the fissile material being given up and US financial assistance to help with the dismantling of the nuclear weapons. The last nuclear warhead left Ukraine in June 1996 and Ukraine thereby became the first country to voluntarily relinquish its nuclear weapons.

Since 1992 Ukraine has provided troops and police personnel for international peace-keeping operations under the auspices of the UN and the OSCE in various countries around the world, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Liberia. Ukraine’s armed forces also regularly take part in exercises and other forms of training jointly with forces from NATO member states and other countries, both in Ukraine and elsewhere.