Biletskyi on brigade reforms: Officers now eat same food as soldiers. Negligent ones are sent on combat missions. VIDEO
Reforms in the Third Army Corps’ brigades cover all directions, but the key element is transforming internal culture.
This was reported by Corps Commander Andrii Biletskyi in an interview with the Bombardyr YouTube channel, Censor.NET reports.
What is known?
He said that in some brigades, a Soviet-style model of relations between officers, sergeants and soldiers still persists. For example, the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade had three separate mess halls: one for enlisted personnel and NCOs, one for staff officers, and one for the brigade commander.
"[The brigade commander] has a separate furnished room and a separate menu. Not the same as an officer’s, and an officer’s is not the same as a soldier’s… In another brigade where my officers are already in place, it somehow turned out that meat rations for enlisted personnel are now three times higher than they were a month ago," Biletskyi said.
Now the mess halls and menus are shared for everyone, and food is issued on a first-come, first-served basis, as was customary back in the days of the Azov Regiment.
Are there those who disagree with the changes?
Officers who resist the changes or treat service negligently are transferred to reserve battalions or assigned to carry out combat missions as part of an officer patrol. Recently, officers from the 60th Brigade were sent on such assignments and they changed their attitude toward personnel.
"You can assign an ‘extremely important task’, that is an official term. Send such officers to carry out a task to the very place where they send people, without thinking about how they planned and prepared everything. We use this mechanism with regard to unscrupulous people. And it has a positive effect on personnel, people see justice," Biletskyi said.
The goal of the changes
He added that the goal of these changes is to ensure that all military personnel, regardless of rank and position, feel that they are in the same boat: "Whether it makes it across or not depends on how well and simultaneously they all row, not on how loudly the helmsman shouts."
As previously reported, the new commander of the 125th Separate Heavy Mechanised Brigade, Major Volodymyr Fokin, conducted an assessment of officers’ knowledge during his first two months in the post. Those who were not performing their duties properly were formed into officer patrols and sent to reinforce defenses in the Kupiansk direction.
