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U.S., Ukraine Sign Cooperation Agreement

 
 By Jim Garamone
 
American Forces Press Service

 BRUSSELS -- The U.S.-Ukraine Defense Cooperation Plan inked 
 here Dec. 3 will affect service members from all levels of 
 the U.S. military, DoD officials said.
 Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and Ukrainian Defense 
 Minister Olexander Kuzmuk signed the pact at a ceremony in 
 NATO headquarters. The agreement covers calendar 2000 and 
 spells out functional areas of U.S. defense cooperation 
 with Ukraine.
 There are 25 separate areas of cooperation, said a senior 
 defense official. One major aspect is DoD will continue to 
 help Ukraine with professional military education. This 
 includes advanced officer education and setting up an NCO 
 academy. 
 "At the NCO level, we're contributing a vast amount of 
 experience and work with Ukrainians to develop the 
 academy," the official said. Ukraine did not have a 
 professional NCO corps when it was part of the Soviet 
 Union. Under that system, junior officers handled the jobs 
 normally done by NCOs in Western forces.
 After signing the agreement, Kuzmuk called Cohen "the 
 father of the Ukrainian NCO Corps." He said the program is 
 beginning to bear fruit and Ukraine is creating a 
 professional NCO corps.
 The plan also covers military medical exchanges. It calls 
 for military exchanges with Ukrainians on medical 
 techniques for treating casualties in the field. U.S. and 
 Ukraine forces work together in peacekeeping operations and 
 this type of knowledge could help save lives, officials 
 said.
 Another aspect of the plan calls for exercises dealing with 
 peacekeeping in a chemical and biological environment. 
 "This is something that will have obvious impact on the 
 development of doctrine and the development of training 
 modules for troops," one official said.
 Other portions of the plan call for continued cooperation 
 in counterproliferation programs and for setting up a joint 
 consultative economic system to deal with a range of 
 defense economic issues. The system will track everything 
 from defense budgeting to economic issues associated with 
 base closures, officials said.
 DoD Public Affairs also will cooperate with the Ukrainian 
 Ministry of Defense in setting up public affairs programs.
 The plan is in addition to an agreement signed earlier 
 between U.S. European Command and the Ukrainian Ministry of 
 Defense. That agreement spells out cooperation between the 
 countries for exercises and some military-to-military 
 contacts.
 

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec1999/n12081999_9912084.html