Ukrainian artillery meets the requirements and work principles dominant among our states-partners, members of NATO. The key demand is precision.
And we are confidently moving forward on this track. It was stated by the President during the practical training on enhancing the capacities of missile troops and artillery of the AFU.
"1.5 years ago we discussed the problems of national artillery development in this training area. To date, we have restored the fleet of radio intelligence means," Petro Poroshenko said.
According to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, about 70% of missile troops and artillery control units already use modern national automated software control systems "ARTOS", "Kropyva", "SUVA". "The use of these highly technological systems allows the establishment of high-quality process of almost automatic decision-making up to a separate cannon," the Head of State noted.
"Combining the counterbattery struggle means received from the US within the military aid, we are now using them better than the American military and modernize the American means," the President noted. He added that the Ukrainian artillery staff already has a software developed by Ukrainian experts. "We have also received a unique anti-mortar complex that reduced time for eliminating the units of the enemy. This time from the moment of detection till the elimination amounts to several minutes. The given complexes proved themselves on the touch line," the President said.
The Head of State noted that he had an opportunity to thank the US leadership for that on behalf of the Ukrainian warriors during his visit to New York. "And to agree on the expansion of this assistance: more powerful and modern complexes of radio-electronic struggle and counterbattery struggle will be provided not only from the US," he stressed.
The Head of State emphasizes that this is important because artillery and missile troops play a unique crucial role in ensuring our victory.
The President noted that the given means “make our artillery able to see”. This is the difference of our artillery from what we saw in 2014. Computers, counterbattery struggle means, radars, sound complexes - and this is extremely important.
“They help us see far, where you cannot reach with a binocular or a rangefinder: behind a forest, hill, terricone. As a result, artillery has learned to hit the target precisely, without losing shells and time,” he said.
The Head of State added: “Another important issue is being solved gradually - artillery reconnaissance using the UAVs. In 2014, we could only dream about that. Today, there is a task to ensure that each artillery battery is equipped with a UAV system and software and hardware communications in order to make the time from finding the target to determining and transmitting its coordinates equal to several seconds”.
“Such an approach allows us to move from the old Soviet principle of "density" and "intensity" of artillery fire, which is still actively used by the Russian aggressor. Instead, I believe that now we have to move to a principle that prevails among our partner countries, the members of the North Atlantic Alliance - NATO. This key feature is precision,” Petro Poroshenko stressed.
According to him, the Ukrainian artillery fully meets these requirements today. “We are steadily moving along this path. In general, for the current year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine received more than 600 pieces of rocket-artillery weapons, about 250 units of night vision devices and other modern weapons models, he informed.
The President also noted that during the same period, the Corsair portable missile complex, Fury and Fly Eye unmanned aerial systems were put into service. As part of the logistical support of our foreign partners, we additionally received more than 100 units of night vision devices, secured laptops etc.
At the same time, the Head of State added that, unfortunately, there were still many problems. "This concerns the restoration and modernization of armaments, the provision of ammunition, the improvement of training centers of gunners and bringing the process of their training in line with the actual needs of the troops and NATO standards,” he said.
The Supreme Commander-in-Chief instructed the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of Ukraine to further increase the intensity and quality of the training of gunners.
