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Ukraine General Staff confirms plans for territorial rotation of servicemen

KIEV, March 07. /ITAR-TASS/. The General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed plans of territorial rotation of servicemen. “This plan is being developed and seeks to increase combat capability of Ukrainian army,” a high-ranking official of Ukrainian General Staff told Itar-Tass on Friday.

In his words, rotation will be made in three stages. “At first stage lasting one or two months servicemen occupying posts from battalion commander and higher will be transferred in other Ukrainian regions. At second stage of more than two months other officers who are natives of eastern and southern Ukrainian regions will be redeployed. At third stage we will move other categories (of servicemen),” the official said.

“To rotate naval officers on this scheme will be problematic; therefore, we have a task jointly with security services to monitor their moods and moods of their relatives to learn their attitude to new authorities. We will make reshuffles after this survey,” the senior officer of the Ukrainian General Staff said.

“Chiefs of other law enforcement agencies received similar orders (over rotation),” he said.

Rotation mainly aims at “transferring servicemen who are natives of eastern and southern regions of the country from places where their relatives live and replacing them with servicemen from western Ukraine,” a source in the Ukrainian defense agency told Itar-Tass. “First of all, rotation will spread on command staff,” the source added. Meanwhile, the source noted that these measures were agreed upon with acting Ukrainian President Alexander Turchynov who believes that rotation “will permit to rule out cases of servicemen massively siding with separatist forces in these regions and will ensure integrity of country’s armed forces.