Military Structure in Ukraine

Video Transcript

So when I was working over there, they didn't have an empowered NCO corps. It was very much like it was in the Russian military where the NCOs were just the senior soldiers, you know, the soldiers who had served longer than everybody else. So they weren't necessarily considered to be leaders. You often found sorry, junior officers doing what we do in our militaries, in NATO militaries would have NCOs doing, you know, gate guard, stuff like that, coordinating different tasks and details. Usually that would be a junior officer doing it rather than an NCO. So they weren't considered to be leaders in the same way that we consider our CEOs to be leaders. And in fact, sometimes I remember the assembled officers would feel slighted if they had an NCO briefing them. Where, in fact, we would defer to the NCO sometimes as a subject matter expert. This person knows what they're talking about. Why don't I have them brief you? Whereas over there, sometimes in at least 2010, 2011, that was perceived as not professional.

A service member discusses differences in authority among the ranks in Ukraine.