Ukrainian military personnel and local government leaders were surprised: how could it be that Viesturs Silenieks, then Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia, along with the Chief Chaplain of the National Armed Forces and two high-ranking military officials, had entered the eastern border war zone without any armoured personnel carriers or helicopter escorts in sight? The logic of post-Soviet life suggested: if officials from a neighbouring country had arrived for an experience-sharing visit, they should be greeted with fanfares, red carpets, and military parades, taken through barracks with walls freshly whitewashed in honour of the delegation, and certainly kept well away from the trenches. The logic of the “delegation” was completely opposite: Latvia and Ukraine, both historically and geopolitically, find themselves in a relatively similar situation, and at least in theory, both are exposed to similar military risks. Without a doubt, the Latvian National Armed Forces can participate in missions in Mali, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but Ukraine is the country whose experience, mistakes, and successes deserve special attention when thinking about the ideal Latvian defence model. Therefore, Silenieks’ working group had to try to bypass the official side and sneak in through the back door to get as close as possible, not just to the trenches: the military sphere, of course, is an important element of national defence, but the Ukrainian example shows that it is closely linked to practically every other sector of the economy, including culture and religion. To get to know the various state structures, their mutual cooperation, and their defence potential in as much detail as possible, the route was organised quietly and unobtrusively.
Having landed in Ukraine, the group headed east. The five days promised to be intense: the plans included visits to army units, schools, hospitals, emergency services, border guard posts, municipalities, and other institutions important for defence throughout the border zone, while the evenings were reserved for discussing and analysing these observations. For security reasons, the route was regularly changed and adjusted, and in most cases, each visit was allocated at most half an hour, after which the visitors would get back into their jeeps and head to the next stop.
On the way east, the group was joined by several volunteer chaplains of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who were well-acquainted with daily life on the front line. Even before 2014, everything was fine with faith in the country, but now, following the famous saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes”, it has grown significantly. The chaplains are respected in both military and civilian circles: they provide the soldiers with not only spiritual but also psychological support and regularly visit the soldiers’ hideouts, which, as the situation deteriorated, were set up in abandoned barns, grain elevators, and old agricultural machinery workshops.
One of the reasons why everything was done as quickly and unobtrusively as possible was that a bounty had been placed on the heads of the Ukrainian chaplains. Any idiot can look it up on the internet (first name, surname, address, price list – all freely available) and show up armed at the nearest chaplain's doorstep that same evening. This intimidation tactic is very popular on the other side of the border, all the more so because a large proportion of the chaplains in Ukraine are volunteers, including businessmen and industrialists. Tapping mobile phones in such circumstances is also a matter of course.
“If we were to place ten switched-on phones on the table during an evening meeting,” says Viesturs, “there would be a high probability that an artillery shell would hit that very spot.”
Life in Eastern Ukraine has not stopped. On the contrary, over the last four years, both in the conflict zones and across the country, there has been an increasingly strong sense of cohesion, and one can often hear the same phrase among various groups in society: “This war has done us good.” Not because endless armed conflicts with no foreseeable end are something worth admiring. War is, was, and will be something to be avoided. But in Ukraine, the circumstances have forced people to find ways to cooperate, to be in solidarity, to get involved in volunteer movements, to form public organisations – in other words, to maintain a common course in a country where, until now, everyone had been on their own. In pre-war Ukraine, as in neighbouring countries, the yardstick for everything was business, competition, and individual gain. It is hard to talk about consensus if the most important question is “how to screw others over and profit myself”. This problem still exists in Latvia too, yet in Ukraine, it had reached much more dangerous proportions and, in some places, bordered on petty looting.
The Chaplaincy Service of the Latvian National Armed Forces regularly sends humanitarian aid shipments to Eastern Ukraine. Currently, their total volume exceeds 200 tonnes – ranging from hospital beds to such specific things as, for example, size 50 footwear. The first shipment was immediately stolen. The second one too. But over the years, the stealing has decreased – it has not been fully eradicated, but it is approaching the limits of reason.
Arriving at one of the municipalities that received aid, the Latvian Chief Chaplain Elmārs Pļaviņš put it bluntly:
“Well then, you stole it all, did you?”
In administrations, such frankness has begun to be respected. It has entered the consciousness of officials just as much as the understanding of how vulnerable a divided nation is. How simple it is to weaken an army with the help of external influence, to eliminate organised resistance, and to sink all sectors of the economy one by one, as has been happening for years in the war zones and across the country.
“It is a pity,” comes the classic answer, “that we have only understood this now.”
Public infrastructure in Eastern Ukraine is developing faster than ever; this is linked to the realisation that high-quality national defence is comprehensive. A well-defended country is not the one that owns the most tanks and men with submachine guns, but one whose sectors are able to cooperate in an organised manner.
An excellent example is hospitals. With the onset of the first shelling, frontier medics soon realised that they would not be able to just continue working and treating the wounded. International conventions state that opening fire on hospitals, churches, and schools is forbidden, but no one, of course, took that into account – it was precisely hospitals and schools that were chosen as the first targets for attacks. When window glass begins to shatter in operating theatres in one wing of a hospital, you have to move to another. When the same thing happens there, the only solution is to move to the basement. And here it turns out that defence issues are relevant not only at the front but everywhere. Conditions in basements tend to be unsanitary. Backup generators, if they exist at all, consume fuel and emit gases, so ventilation systems must also be in perfect working order. Surgical tables suddenly turn out to be difficult to transport, especially if lifts do not work during a power cut. Concrete walls and roofs, built according to the “most economically advantageous tender”, collapse after the slightest impact. The number of medics decreases dramatically, while the number of wounded increases. During his visit, Silenieks met with two surgeons and an anaesthesiologist who, in 24 hours, had been forced between the three of them to perform more than 70 surgeries; furthermore, it turned out that alongside gunshot wounds, lacerations, and burns, heart attacks were also particularly common during the war. A whole series of small obstacles and barriers come to light, which one could well do without. A classic example: why are there steps at the entrance to the hospital? Even in peacetime, they do not facilitate access for the disabled in wheelchairs, nor for orderlies with stretchers, nor even for cleaners who wash them. In wartime, such a seemingly insignificant obstacle becomes much more decisive.
All of these, as well as many other circumstances, have begun to be taken into account in Ukrainian hospitals, and it is very important to understand whether Latvian medical institutions are also ready for a crisis situation? In Latvia, unlike in Ukraine, there is currently a shortage of specialised military surgeons who have taken not the Hippocratic Oath, but a soldier's oath, and therefore are forced to save lives while endangering their own – which the traditional medical oath does not legally foresee. However, this is not just about military aggression from neighbours. All these defence issues also relate to epidemics, cataclysms, sudden influxes of refugees, and other circumstances which official documents often refer to as force majeure.
The delegation frequently visited frontier schools. Lessons continued there as usual, and even when, despite the terms of the Minsk agreements, shots were fired 100 or even 50 metres away, children and teachers no longer dived under their desks, as they did at first, but continued their lessons as if nothing had happened.
From the point of view of crisis management, schools have an important secondary function: they have many spacious rooms, showers, canteens, and sports halls where a large number of people can be put up if necessary. During wartime, civilians are most often evacuated precisely to schools. The municipalities of Eastern Ukraine have begun to realise this and are now renovating schools that had not been repaired for years.
Admittedly, this renovation often still takes place in a DIY style. In one such school, an A4 sheet of paper with the inscription BOMB SHELTER was attached to the technical basement door. But when Viesturs asked the teacher if he could take a look at how everything was set up down there, the teacher answered a little confusedly:
“Yes, but then I will have to go to the caretaker for the key.”
The understanding of easily accessible defence infrastructure is still not universal in Ukraine, and perhaps it is not yet possible to implement it at the level of thinking, but a tendency towards resource autonomy can be observed at all levels. First of all, this concerns the economy, the distribution of energy resources, and industry. Ukraine has a large enough domestic market consumption that home-grown products can also be sold right there on the spot. The country has three factories that produce tanks and heavy armoured vehicles, but only in recent years are they no longer being sold to Russia. Furthermore, a large portion of Russian military equipment, including helicopters, had until now been produced with Ukrainian engines and other components. Now, Ukrainian factories supply only their own army. The flow of information is also strictly limited: the “First Baltic Channel” has been cut off without any possibility of amnesty, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has separated from the Russian Orthodox Church, thereby regaining control over the content of sermons, and Russian men are prohibited from entering the country (this was done in order to limit as much as possible the creation of hostile groups).
Following this example, it is important to evaluate the Latvian economy and its independence as well. Currently, Latvia is dependent on foreign energy resources. During the year, petroleum products worth approximately one billion euros are imported – that is one-ninth of the state budget. Another half-billion is invested in the purchase of cars and their parts. The army, in contrast, is supplied with uniforms, webbing, and body armour made in Latvia. But these issues also affect lighter sectors, even the food industry itself. Perhaps it is cheaper to buy milk and bread from neighbouring countries. But would home-grown production facilities be enough if, in wartime conditions, the import of goods was suddenly no longer possible?
One must think in similar categories about the distribution of energy resources and infrastructure in cities as well. In Ukraine, until 2014, they hardly thought about these topics. Roads, pavements, parks, pedestrian crossings – almost everything had been preserved from the USSR era and did not stand out for any particular quality; moreover, the newest Soviet cities on one side of the border and the other were so similar that a quite logical question could arise: what, excuse me, is the difference which side you live on?
After regaining independence, post-Soviet countries, including Latvia, suffered from the same tendency that has already been successfully overcome in Scandinavia and Western Europe – transport infrastructure was planned in such a way that car owners would receive the maximum benefit, and all other road users would interfere with them as little as possible.
This kind of urban planning, where traffic flow is “regulated” by building roads suitable for an ever-increasing number of cars, while pedestrians and cyclists are restricted by fences and barriers, degrades not only the urban environment but also the economy and people's mutual relationships, even in peacetime. A street is a public zone where commercial premises, cultural institutions, and public institutions should be easily and conveniently accessible without unnecessary obstacles. Of course, a young and physically healthy person can, without difficulty (though perhaps not with any great pleasure), descend into an underground tunnel, climb up to an overpass, quickly cross four or six lanes at a green light, and, if necessary, jump over a barrier installed in a nonsensical place. But not everyone has this opportunity, and one only has to calculate how long it takes to travel from the Central Station to the bus station without going down into any underground tunnel to understand that there is still a great deal to improve in Riga.
In Eastern Ukraine, this problem was even more serious, and with the start of the war, a whole range of infrastructure-related problems came to light. During an armed attack, a personal car becomes the most disadvantageous means of transport, and a wide highway – the city's most dangerous zone. Electricity supply in populated areas is very often interrupted. While fuel is still available, huge queues form for it, but without electricity, the pumps at petrol stations no longer work either. Heavy transport – trucks and waste collection vehicles – are loaded with gravel and used to block roads, which in turn also hinders the evacuation of residents in buses. Therefore, it is much more effective to transport people from risk zones by rail. And then it turns out that the fastest and safest way to move independently through cities and military bases is a bicycle. Every cyclist knows that even a two-centimetre-high kerb can create a safety hazard, not to mention larger barriers and poor pavement quality. In a crisis situation, the only winner from human-unfriendly infrastructure is the enemy, and the municipalities of Eastern Ukraine are becoming increasingly aware of this.
However, traffic organisation is only a small part of the overall defence picture. For example, what to do when, due to a power cut, freezers in supermarkets thaw and meat begins to spoil? How to act if waste collectors do not work? When a city is overgrown at uncontrollable speeds first with kilograms, then with tonnes of rubbish, every plastic package becomes a problem. Mobile communications and electronic services can also cut out at some point. One can forget about access to cashless funds in a bank account in such cases. But one of the most serious security risks, which manifested itself particularly strongly in Eastern Ukraine, is the placement of utilities above ground. Electricity wires stretched in the air snap after the slightest contact with falling trees or shells. In minus thirty degrees of frost, they sometimes snap of their own accord, but a cable falling from the height of the sixth floor can also kill. Even in the best working order, they hinder firefighters and rescue helicopters. In Ukraine, following the Soviet example, not only electricity but also gas pipes are placed above ground; any saboteur could cut them with a hacksaw, not to mention what would happen if a tank were to drive over them. A large part of Eastern Ukraine's municipalities have finally understood that this problem needs to be solved, but there is a lack of both resources and time, and not all responsible services are yet ready to think in such categories.
Of course, admitting mistakes and gaps in national defence is unpleasant, especially at the administration level. That same official Soviet thinking dictates: if a delegation from a neighbouring country's Ministry of Defence has arrived at an army unit or municipality, then the task of the officers and officials is to show themselves in the best light. But the majority of officials were ready to admit their weak points.
Possibly, this readiness to speak openly and admit old mistakes was facilitated by Elmārs Pļaviņš’ disarmingly informal attitude. Having arrived at yet another church or army unit, he would friendly slap the generals, point his finger at the chaplains, and say:
“Well? Come on, let's see which of us can do the most press-ups!”
This caused shock among Ukrainian officials. Pastors who daily moved about in Bentleys would now stroke their beards and indignantly twist their gold crosses in their fingers, but, cornered, they cast aside their shame, did press-ups, and held the so-called “plank” alongside ordinary soldiers.
This tactic worked. The Ukrainians admitted that they still do not understand a lot and are finally ready to change their way of thinking, because that is exactly what is needed to organise cooperation in all sectors and to make national defence total.
Mutual cooperation has indeed increased at all sorts of levels. Until now, all regional revenues were channelled to the centre, so the previous president could afford to live in a palace with loaves of gold bread, while the municipalities were left with no choice but to continue using the highly questionable Soviet infrastructure. Now, just like in Latvia, Ukrainian regions have been granted much greater autonomy and the possibility to solve local issues independently.
For this purpose, a very effective system has been established in the country. It is clear that in emergency situations, decisions must be taken operatively: in crossfire, there is no longer any time for internal disagreements and political ambitions. Furthermore, in wartime conditions, a large part of municipal deputies leave the region or the country, and the city council becomes legally powerless: no decision can be taken without a quorum. In such cases, Kyiv has the right to appoint an acting head of administration in any city. Simply put, this is an official who is temporarily authorised to single-handedly make decisions in a crisis situation.
Usually, such a head is a person with a strong character – a former military person or an executive director who knows their region well, its strategic objects, communications, and available resources. By consulting with the remaining deputies and local government leaders, they are able to keep the economy alive and operatively resolve issues that in peacetime would take several days or even months. The Ukrainian government is well aware that a council with democratically elected deputies is important and necessary, but an emergency solution must also always be at hand, because the municipality's tasks during wartime do not change – it must ensure the needs of the civilian population. But these tasks become more complex: buildings have shattered windows. Resources are lacking. Mobile bakeries and waste removal must be organised. One must prevent the possibility of epidemics breaking out and ensure drinking water. And on top of all that comes the fight against looting. Before the introduction of this operative management system, banditry was possibly the biggest problem in the entire war zone. With the introduction of crisis administrators in Ukraine, it has been possible to eradicate this in many places.
One field which Ukraine failed to realise in time was prisons. The Russian government, for instance, sent prisoners to the front without any moral scruples. But this army of former recidivists first and foremost took over Ukrainian prisons, released the inmates, and persuaded them to switch to their side. Guided by this experience, the Latvian Ministry of Justice also has a great opportunity to think about how not to allow such a situation. But from this question, as in any field, follows a whole series of others: who exactly are the prison guards? To what forces would they be loyal in a crisis situation? Would Latvian prisons be ready for the placement of prisoners of war?
And what to do with “third forces”? When attacks on factories, mines, and large production facilities took place in Donbas, their owners turned to Moscow, demanding a ceasefire and putting up their own private security firms, which, in terms of numbers and training, are comparable to small armies. In separate cases, they were forced to repel attacks and proved that they are quite capable of doing so. In Latvia, there are no oligarchs of this level, but a large part of the racketeering of the 90s has been legalised in the form of security firms. Professional security guards regularly undergo training and are much stronger than the average civilian. Ukrainian experts point out that this is a large, organised force that must not be ignored and which, in the case of correct action, can defend the state's interests rather than turn against them at the most critical moment.
When the first Ukrainian fighters, the so-called cyborgs, fought for Donetsk airport, a large part of them were volunteers, young lads without any military experience. Those who survived now hold high ranks and are in command positions. In army headquarters, Silenieks’ brigade was often asked the question:
“What are you even looking for here?”
“We,” they answered, “are coming to you because you are defending Latvia. As long as you are biting the bear on one leg, it is considerably calmer.”
The soldiers greatly appreciated this attitude. Given that the leadership of the Ukrainian army has completely changed since the beginning of the conflict, the thinking inherited from the Soviet army is also gradually changing.
At present, the front line is standing still, but the Ukrainian troops are moving eastwards step by step. Staff rotation is carried out every six months, but if active combat does not take place during this time, the soldiers get tired of doing nothing. And if soldiers are not occupied, they start getting into mischief, lose their sharpness, and sometimes perish, walking along the trenches with their heads held high. Despite what is now quite long-term experience, this problem is being solved poorly. Visiting army units near the very line of fire, the working group encountered an age-old but still relevant conclusion: morale is an extremely important factor, and soldiers must be treated with respect, even more so given that mostly they live not in barracks, but in barns, stables, and garages. Maintaining morale is every commander's individual task, but not everyone manages it. With more narrow-minded commanders, chaos reigns in hideouts, the air reeks of sour food, and soldiers often carry out room improvements on their own – welding, for example, something similar to a boiler, connecting it to a 380-volt voltage without any insulation, and setting up a shower that is impossible to enter without rubber boots. But nearby in another unit, the commander maintains order, heats the rooms, and, as far as possible, creates a cosy atmosphere. In the most active stages of combat, both these units might perhaps be able to serve equally effectively, but the difference is that the capability of the first is determined only by their own enthusiasm and patriotic feelings, which at the most inappropriate moment may also dwindle – especially if officials continue to steal resources and ride around in fancy cars while the soldiers subordinate to them sleep in the mud of the trenches.
This list could be continued infinitely. At the basis of comprehensive national defence is the principle that the question of any sector can be viewed through the prism of the question of any other sector. The problems from which modern Ukraine still suffers are to a greater or lesser extent relevant in any post-Soviet country, and in Scandinavia and Western Europe, countries have also lived through them at some point. Latvia, too, has made exactly the same mistakes during the years of independence and has still not got rid of the situation where each ministry operates only within its own sector, without paying attention to or taking into account how this affects all other spheres of operation and the quality of life as a whole.
“But that is only normal,” says Silenieks, “each nation has to live through these illnesses. But if one learns from others' mistakes, one can get over the illness even before an epidemic has set in. And that is a very good school.”
Prepared by Svens Kuzmins
Article first published in the March 2019 issue of the magazine Rīgas Laiks