KYIV. Jan 9 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev has announced a plan to organize highly professional modern armed forces.
"We don't need soldiers who spend six months learning the ropes and the next six months getting ready for demobilization," a statement from the Defense Ministry quoted Lebedev as saying on Friday. "We have the task of creating modern Ukrainian armed forces of a new type - well-trained and with good social security. We will cope with this task."
Lebedev said military personnel who did not have a pay raise in 2012 would do so in 2013.
Officers would be provided with better housing through the auctioning of unused military real estate, he said.
The minister visited the Ivano-Frankivsk garrison on Friday.