Ukraine prepares new military contract system and procurement tenders — Fedorov

The Defense Ministry will soon begin implementing the first projects aimed at comprehensively transforming recruitment and service conditions in Ukraine’s Defense Forces.

Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced the plans during a meeting with journalists.

“From day one in office, together with the president, we have been working on a comprehensive transformation of recruitment and service conditions in the Defense Forces. We are preparing to launch the first projects: a fair pay model, a new contract system with clearly defined service terms and a transparent rotation framework, new approaches to staffing our units, reducing the rate of unauthorized leave and others,” Fedorov said.

The second focus area is anti-corruption. According to the minister, this summer will mark the transition to tender-based procedures in defense procurement.

“We have already conducted the largest competitive procurement procedure for long-range 155 mm artillery rounds and achieved savings of more than 16%. The next step is moving drone procurement to tenders,” Fedorov said.

“Our task is to build a transparent, competitive and fast procurement system without corruption risks,” he added.

At the same time, the Defense Ministry is launching a number of anti-corruption reforms, particularly in the areas of research and development and state quality assurance.

The third area will focus on introducing a guaranteed baseline supply of drones for brigades.

“We need every unit to understand what minimum level of equipment it is guaranteed to receive next month in order to plan operations and work effectively,” the minister said.