Second in Command – to whom?

Without a doubt many will probably agree that Ukraine's democracy is extremely fragile, and while the world observes the young nation and its apparent political persecution of the opposition by the current regime there is plenty more going on in the country. Many events slip under the radar of most, though an event which transpired last week, while not as resonant as the absurd trials of former Ministry of the Interior Yuriy Lutsenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, there is an event and how it is being handled and why it ever even happened that deserves some reflection.

On the evening of September 7, 2011 Volodymyr Mozharovsky after work returned home to his residence at 26b Dehtyarivska Street in Kyiv, like he had countless times before. This building is not a simple apartment building. It serves as the residence for senior and higher ranking officials of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Like any other evening, he used his magnetic key to enter the building. A short time later he was found in a pool of his own blood on the landing between the second and third floors by another officer who had entered shortly after General Mozharovsky, Deputy Minister of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense entered the building.

The General suffered an open head wound, has a concussion and is expected to remain in hospital for up to two weeks according to reports.

Now just imagine if General Sir John Nicholas Reynolds Houghton of the UK, Admiral Michael Mullen of the United States or General Walter J. Natynczyk of Canada were bopped over the head by unknown assailants. What would the reaction to such an incident be by their respective ministries or departments? You would imagine that there would be a full investigation and the law enforcement officials would be on top of such an incident, if it were ever allowed to happen in the first place? Would you not?

Clearly Ukraine operates under some very different rules of conduct, and those who have been following my commentary are probably becoming aware of this if they were not already aware of it.

But what did Ukraine experience? Not much. The current Minister of Defense Mykhaylo Yezhel held a press conference where the typical double-speak was employed, though to this day nothing in terms of the attack on General Mozharovsky has been published on the Ministry of Defense news portal. As one of the commentators of the event, a military reservist, who brought my attention to this matter, reserve Colonel Viktor Tymoshenko, reported in UNIAN, Yezhel did very little except in the words of Tymoshenko: “We found out that the state of mind of the first person of the nation responsible for military affairs was to save his own backside.”

It seems that the most important thing that Yezhel said was, “There were no working documents in his satchel.”

Tymoshenko goes on further to question the same things that anyone else would question, particularly anyone with some degree of professionalism. Why on earth has nothing been publicly undertaken?

The answer is very simple. The level of professionalism that exists at all levels of Ukrainian government at this time is laughable. Those in positions of power are a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox, and to add they are bandits with no understanding between “right and wrong”.

As Tymoshenko states in his report in UNIAN, the army as a political institution is losing its' voice. So who controls the Ukrainian army now? Is it the people who they are supposed to serve or the bandits that who have come into power? If they are for the people, those in control as well as all who have taken an oath to serving the country should get to the bottom of this incident as quickly as possible.

If the army is really serving the interests of the nation, then why do his fellow officers and individual soldiers allow such as this to happen. Clearly, if one has a general who may be carrying “secrets in the interest of the nation” then such an individual should be appointed the appropriate security.

Once again, Ukraine, or at least its officials show that they are nothing but two-bit crooks trying to run a nation, a nation and people that are not just geographically located in Europe.