By KYIV. Sept 14 (Interfax-Ukraine) – A group of MPs has proposed that the Verkhovna Rada simplifies the procedure for writing off military equipment lost in battle.
Bill No. 10039 on introducing appropriate amendments to the law on the legal regime of property in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on September 13.
The initiator of the document, Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Roman Kostenko (Holos parliamentary faction), in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine, said that the adoption of the bill will expand the range of write-offs of lost military property to commanders of military units, and will also eliminate the need for additional coordination of the procedure with law enforcement agencies.
“First of all, we are expanding the range of write-offs, thanks to which unit commanders will be able to write off property of different types worth UAH 1.7 million, despite the fact that previously they could not write off, for example, medical equipment or communications equipment. Moreover, the commander can write off property will be able to do so without additional contact with law enforcement agencies. Although before this, coordination with the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the Military Law Enforcement Service was mandatory. In the bill, we are removing this,” the parliamentarian said.
In addition, according to Kostenko, the bill provides that a commission from a brigade will be able to write off property lost in battle “in one act, provided there is evidence from participants in the events.”
“For example, there was a battle, after which there was loss of property in the form of, let’s say, a radio station, uniform, ammunition, and to write off all this, each service now shall conduct a separate investigation and draw up separate acts. Again, this requires a lot of approvals, in particular, in the prosecutor’s office and the Supreme Court,” the MP said.
The authors of the legislative initiative also propose to define a period of 20 days during which the commander “shall react and sign so that property does not accumulate with military units, when according to their papers they have a lot of it, but in fact, it was lost in battle.”
The parliamentarian said that in connection with the hostilities in Ukraine, large losses of property are recorded, and all procedures for writing them off are long outdated, bureaucratic and can take months and even years. According to Kostenko, this leads to the fact that military units have a lot of lost property, and at the same time they cannot obtain what they need.
“This bill emerged as a result of my constant discussions at the front, and all military personnel, including commanders of military units, are waiting for its adoption. For example, Mavics (DJI Mavic quadcopters are used by the Ukrainian military for aerial reconnaissance), which we provide to the front in the thousands, only the commander of the Air Force has the right to write off. Therefore, we are trying to make life easier for military personnel at the front during martial law in Ukraine,” Kostenko added.
In addition to Kostenko, the co-authors of the bill were also about 40 members of various parliamentary factions and groups, in particular, Fedir Venislavsky, Oleksandr Zavitnevych, Mariana Bezuhla (Servant of the People), Iryna Friz, Oleksiy Honcharenko (European Solidarity), Roman Lozynsky, Solomyia Bobrovska, Serhiy Rakhmanin (Holos), Mykhailo Tsymbaliuk (Batkivschyna), and Larysa Bilozir (Dovira).
