Trying to change culture in Ukraine's Armed Forces – Commander-in-Chief

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has spoken about his efforts to "change the culture in the Armed Forces of Ukraine", which he said helped unite the army "around one goal: to overcome a strong enemy".

Source: Zaluzhnyi in an interview with Dmytro Komarov in the film Rik. Za Kadrom (A Year. Behind the scenes)

Quote: "Everything that I, as General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, have tried to do in the Armed Forces and continue to try and do, I have tried to do the main thing: to change the culture in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

To listen to the opinion of my subordinate, to listen to my subordinate as a human being and to build normal relations between people in the Armed Forces.

And this is the fundamental difference between us and the Soviet army."

Details: Zaluzhnyi has noted that overcoming the "soviet approach" in the Armed Forces is ongoing, and only the results will show how long it will take.

He has added that it is harder to fight this when fierce battles are going on and important decisions are being made about actions at the front.

Quote: "But the fact that we are no longer like the armed forces of the Russian Federation is a huge advantage for us. And it is this new culture that we have tried to launch in the armed forces that has united everyone around us. Generals, junior commanders, and most importantly, soldiers, we managed to unite (not completely)... around one goal: to overcome a strong enemy."

"Thank God I did not serve in the Soviet army...

I don't want to evaluate the activities of my predecessors in the first place; it would be rude of me, but the Soviet army lived in the Armed Forces of Ukraine for a long time, and there are still echoes of it; it has not yet fully ended its existence."

"My subordinates know... if I find a little bit of a representative of some Soviet army at any post, I won't be looking into it for long."

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