When Anatoliy Gritsenko was named as the most probable candidate to head the Defense Ministry, a majority of experts agreed that the Ukrainian army needs a civilian minister. However, only a few know that Gritsenko is a retired colonel with a 25-year record of military service.

In 1974, a boy from provincial town of Vatutino entered, without anyone’s patronage, the Suvorov military college in Kyiv and graduated from it cum laude. After that, Gritsenko graduated from the Kyiv higher military aviation and engineering college and later on, in the early 1990s, from the Institute of Foreign Languages at the Defense Ministry of the USA and the operational-strategic department of the US Air Force University. In 1995 he mastered his knowledge at the Academy of Armed Forces of Ukraine, after graduation from which he headed for three years the department of military security and military construction at the National Research Center of Defense Technologies and Military Security of Ukraine. As a part of Oleksandr Razumkov’s team he came to the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to head the analytical service. This was his last job with state institutions. In 1999 Anatoliy Gritsenko became the President of the Oleksandr Razumkov Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research and retired from the army.

He was repeatedly invited to take a job with state institutions under the previous government, yet he did not find it appropriate to cooperate with that regime. An analysis of his work record reveals that the newly appointed Defense Minister had to change the sphere of his activity many times, but quickly mastered new areas of work. For example, when in the NSDC, he was in charge of religion, relations with Russia and the energy sector. Due to his remarkable efficiency, excellent time management skills and fearlessness of difficulties in pursuit of his objectives, Gritsenko coped excellently with any task. Fluency in English is another of Grytsenko’s advantages. He also has excellent Russian, unlike many other Cabinet members. It is also significant that Gritsenko is the most frequently quoted expert in the West on civil control over the military and on military and political reform, while his book on these issues has become a handbook for all military attaches coming to Ukraine.

The first thing Gritsenko is likely to do as Defense Minister is to carry out a thorough and in-depth audit of the Ukrainian military. At the same time, the new head will have to make a scrupulous analysis to make a realistic assessment of Ukraine’s possible military threats and resources. This will serve the grounds for reform of the Ukrainian military in compliance with the ambitious plan of its transference to a contractual basis by 2010.

The new government’s program does not mention Ukraine’s intention to move forward on the way to NATO. According to Gritsenko, this is accounted for by a move of emphasis from high-flown words to actions. It is unclear, however, why it is impossible to carry out reform and pursue NATO membership at the same time. Yet we have to agree that taking our army out of its crisis and building up the Armed Forces in full compliance with the best international standards is essential for Ukraine. If we have the prospect of NATO accession at the same time, this would mean that the Defense Minister would have succeeded in his task.

We can only hope that with Anatoliy Gritsenko leaving the post of president of the Razumkov Center, the center will remain the most influential analytical institution in Ukraine.