Air Defense Force History
"Birth" of the Air Defense Force of Ukraine, its formation and development were tightly connected with history of the country.
In the period of 1914-1917 there were developed main operational-tactical principles of air defense of logistic objects. These principles were totally implemented in action in the process of organization of air-cover of important objects of Odessa operational command (Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson etc.)
In the middle 1915 there was created the service of air (visual) observation, warning and communication that was aimed to detect enemy aircrafts, to monitor their action and to warn air defense units of their appearance.
January, 1992 - The Command of 8th Separate Air Defence Army and the personnel of combat anti-aircraft units and radar troops, fighter aviation and logistical support elements and units had sworn allegiance to the people of Ukraine.
April-May, 1992 - The Command of The Air Defence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is founded according to the Decree of the President of Ukraine #209 dated 5 Apr 1992 "About urgent measures as for creation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine" and the Order of Minister of Defence.
June, 1996 - Lieutenant-General STETSENKO is appointed Deputy Minister of Defence - Commander-in-chief of The Air Defence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the Decree of the President of Ukraine #449/96 dated 20 Jun 1996.
3 July 1996 - Experimental firings (launchings) of short and medium range SAM complexes were conducted on the Ukrainian territory for the first time in the history of Ukraine.
An attempt to consolidate the two forces into one was made in 1996, but the attempt was a failure then because of poor performance of the unified control system. The command-and-staff exercise which took place at the West Tactical Command headquarters on March 21 through 24, 2000 was intended to look into the possibility to consolidate the Air Force and Air Defense Force into a single branch of the service, as Russia had already done.
2 July 1997 - The professional holiday - the Day of The Air Defence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was established by the Decree of the President of Ukraine #602/97 as a national-wide recognition of the Air Defence contribution to the defensive potential of State. The Day of the Air Defence is yearly celebrated on the first Sunday of July.
In 1997 the Program of The Air Defence of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was worked out and approved by the Minister of Defence of Ukraine. The Program includes the system of concepts on tasks of the Air Defence, the general ways, phases and perspectives of its development. The primary purpose of the Program is the foundation of the unified state air defense system taking into account today's military and political situation, methods and rates of the Armed Forces development, financial and economical ability of Ukraine and up-to-date requirements for the state defense potential.
July 2000 - In accordance with the Decree of the President of Ukraine #931/2000 of July 31, 2000 Lieutenant-general Volodimir V. Tkachov was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense - Commander-in-chief of the Air Defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
October 2000 - Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted Law of Ukraine "Of the Armed Forces of Ukraine" in which Air Defense force gained the status of the armed service of the Armed forces of Ukraine - this was the token of recognition of achievements of "sky guards" in the process of strengthening of the defensive capacity of the state and operational readiness of its Armed Forces.
Ukraine's military is better known for its misfires than its bulls eyes. In two years alone, the troops accidentally fired missiles at an apartment complex and a passenger ship. Its most notorious disaster of all, the downing of a Russian airliner over the Black Sea in the fall of 2001, killed 78 people and drew international ridicule and repulsion. Attempts by Moscow to take away the keys to the Ukrainian sky from the Armed Forces began even before the war. It is worth mentioning the devastating consequences of the then President Yanukovych's appointment of Russian citizen Dmitriy Salamatin to the position of Minister of Defense, who began to reduce Ukrainian air defense forces, primarily in the East of the country. And he completed this special operation of the Kremlin, when in 2013 he removed all S-200B and S-200D ("Vega") air defense systems from the armed forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - the most long-range and capable of hitting air targets at a distance of more than 200 km.
In early 2005, the armed forces of Ukraine moved to a "trividovu" structure — Army, Navy and Air Force. The main purpose of the establishment of this new type was determined by increasing the level of effectiveness of the tasks inherent in both military - Air Forces, and Air Defence Forces - by eliminating duplicative controls the overall process of protecting domestic airspace. It should be noted that the creation of the air force did not become a mechanical merger of two previously existing types of Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was primarily driven by the desire of military-political leadership of the country to raise the level of effectiveness of protection of air space to a new, better level.
The Air Force is a new service within the Armed Forces, established in 2004-2005 through the merging of the Air Force and the Air Defence Force. It allowed the Armed Forces of Ukraine to transform to the tri-service structure common to modern armies. Historically, the Ukrainian Fighting Forces inherited from the Soviet Army two branches of aviation forces - the air force and the air defense force. An attempt to consolidate the two branches of the service was made in 1993, as a result of which Ukraine obtained yet another controlling body that proved unable to effectively control either the air force or the air defense force.
Ukraine’s acting Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh described the combat readiness of the country’s armed forces as “unsatisfactory” in his 12 March 2014 report to the acting president. Tenyukh said recent exercises demonstrated a “dismal degree of preparedness among servicemen and lack of military specialists, equipment and weapons” in the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Navy. The country’s air defense troops had received little training because of the 2001 ban on missile launches imposed after the crash of a Russian Tu-154 passenger jet. According to the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee, the plane with 78 people on board was downed by a wayward Ukrainian S-200 surface-to-air missile during military training exercises. The ban was lifted in 2008, but so far only 10 percent of Air Defense Forces servicemen “have mastered the required level of theory and practice,” the report said.
The UkrOboronService State Enterprise performed work for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to restore combat capabilities of air defense weapons and equipment, as a part of a program of technological modernization of the Air Forces to be conducted through 2017. The program includes in-factory maintenance on four S-300 air defense systems and one Buk-M1 (SA-17 Grizzly) air defense system annually. To date, the company has completed work on six S-300PT air defense systems. A seventh S-300PT is being prepared to enter service, and two more S-300PT systems and one Buk-M1 air defense system are currently in work. UkrOboronService also has contracts with Kazakhstan and Belarus for maintenance and modernization of air defense systems.
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