Today is the anniversary of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. It’s an important event for our country. Defense Intelligence contributes tremendously in the protection of Ukraine. Dozens of our defense intelligence servicemen have fallen in the battles for freedom and independence of Ukraine.

Defense Intelligence of Ukraine has met the war with Russia in the condition just as critical as any other state institution of Ukraine. All these years of independence Defense Intelligence could not function as an independent institution of national security. Activity against its major competitor – the Russian Federation was simply prohibited. For 23 years experienced professionals had been washed out of Defense Intelligence, losing technical capacities of the agency. The last years of Yanukovych’s rule were rather degradation than development for DIU. It was most likely a gradual destruction plan of the DIU.

Reconnaissance and intelligence units had been disbanded – it happened to the 50th training centre in Kirovograd, reconnaissance battalions and special forces brigades suffered personnel cut-downs as well as all other inconvenient and self-sufficient units. Combat vehicles and training materiel were sold out.

Signal intelligence was in deep recession and almost on the verge of destruction.

Human intelligence and analytical units had never had serious tasks. Humint network in Russia did not exist as a phenomenon and the state structure was complicated with bureaucracy.

The war has created demand for intelligence and made it indispensible. It’s become clear who is the real competitor and when the demand for defense intelligence arose Yurii Pavlov became the Head of Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.

Almost everything had to be made from scratch. Somewhere we did succeed somewhere not.

It was difficult to overcome the recession. But we must know and remember those difficulties in order to understand the long way we’ve come. We started from scratch.

In the crucial moments when the state could not help, it was people who stood up, those professional, voluntary and mobilized servicemen who assumed responsibility and expressed initiative.

Each and everyone of us had his own respective task.

Patriots and professionals of intelligence, people who served well their country did everything possible in the harsh conditions of the conflict and accomplished their missions sometimes at the cost of their lives.

Military intelligence servicemen of DIU, special forces, reconnaissance battalions were charged not only with reconnaissance and intelligence missions but also with missions of guarding crucial objects, being track guides, assault operations force, when they had to lead mobilized raw army soldiers to be defenders of military bases, airports and key elevated points.

Dozens of our servicemen fell in combat with the competitor. Every DIU unit of special reconnaissance has suffered losses.

It must be noted that DIU has always timely reported in advance about all the plans of the enemy, in particular about the invasion by Russian troops in the “D” sector in Illovaysk region and about the constitution and names of the Russian assault troops.

They’ve got things to be proud of. Our reconnaissance scouts captured multiple enemies who supplied information, they’ve marched all over the occupied territory of Donbas region to the very border with Russia, they carried out fire correction of our artillery and managed to pull out from behind the enemy lines almost all of our fallen pilots, they contributed immensely in the defense of the Donetsk and Lughansk airport, Saur-Mohyla, Artemovsk, our multiple troops were guided out of entrapment (record is 2 weeks), they even managed to enroll into the terrorist units and supplied critical information about the enemy plans, there’s more to tell than we have time.

Defense intelligence did not manage to succeed in everything. We were unable do everything. Not all of us made it till now. Courage and heroism can’t replace system and discipline. It was people who passed the test. Fearless and experienced warriors, having passed the universities of war can and must become the core of a new modern and professional intelligence service.

National defense capability grows stronger. And now the perception of the intelligence activity in conditions of war with Russia has changed. New demands, new scale of tasks and new challenges have been set before the Defense Intelligence in terms of hybrid conflict. Demands to the quality and timing of the intelligence reports have grown abruptly. Very acute has become the issue of rational forces and capabilities use. Defense intelligence has to reformat in order to be able to counter powerful Russian special services and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

New reform strategy of the Defense community must be implemented by the new Head of DIU, Valerii Kondratuk.

Mr.Kondratuk is a professional intelligence officer, who started serving in special forces. He is well known in DIU, for a long time he served abroad, including the US. It should be noted that such balanced HR decision of the president of Ukraine is a positive signal for the reorganization of the defense sector.

In the time of Anti-terrorist operation Mr.Kondratuk has become well known as the Head of counter intelligence department of the Security Service of Ukraine, which he had created literally from scratch in the beginning of 2014 in cooperation with other respective units of the Service. The Counter Intelligence department of the SSU turned out to be a very unfortunate surprise for the enemy. Arrested Russian agents, informants, professional officers of Russian special services and hundreds of eliminated subversives and terrorists, this is the reality.

Now the same aggressive style and scale must show in the DIU.

At present there is a set of serious tasks before the command of Defense Intelligence:

Set up effective interaction and coordination with the General Staff of the Armed Forces, with the troops and integrate Intelligence into the decision making process and operational planning, where it is not present at the moment;

Optimize the command structure – simplify and cut down the number of units and increase the number of collecting officers, cut down the number of auxiliary and management personnel;

Concentrate all operational capabilities for information collection against our major competitor – the Russian Federation;

Engage in service fresh professionals, energetic people, new methods and quality of work, provide the training and rational use of the new forces;

Apply effectively and enhance educated and experienced officers, learn from their experience;

Provide possibility for the purposeful use of special forces and reconnaissance battalions according to their functional mission, but not as infantry or guard forces, provide skillful planning and logistics of special operations, make possibilities for professional growth for those who work in the field on key points, who showed combat skills, will, aggression, initiative and ability to act independently in times of war.

Provide single structure of intelligence in the ATO area and set up interaction with all the units within the area of operations, boost distribution and processing of the intelligence on operational and tactical level;

Provide active functioning of space intelligence centre, operation decoding, analysis and distribution of space intelligence. Thanks to our Western partners Ukraine has gained access to wide new capabilities of intelligence collection on-line;

Reorganize and carry out equipment replacement in units of signal intelligence;

Create human intelligence in the operations area and abroad. Reorganize the work of military diplomatic bodies and transform a “perk” into a functional and fruitful structure.

Create Information and Psychological warfare center;

Set up efficient cooperation with volunteers and patriots of Ukraine in the information collection about the competitor;

Set up effective cooperation with intelligence services of our partners in the West;

Reorganize material support system and stimulation of our service people, augment the prestige and authority of intelligence officer.

Defense intelligence has stepped into the process of serious transformation – it is the acute need for the independent state development and survival in terms of aggression and invasion of our land.

Successful defense of Ukraine and driving out Russian invader out of our land is impossible without strong intelligence.

“Censor.NET” congratulates intelligence officers with the professional holiday. On this day we commemorate all those “bats”, who were eyes and ears of our army, who carried out fire correction and guided our army. We commemorate those who gave their lives in combat for freedom and independence of our Motherland, who fought till the very last breath…We believe that given the state and community support Defense Intelligence will arise with new strength and we altogether will break both necks of the two-headed hybrid eagle.

Thank you “Shadows” for serving Ukrainian people!!! It’s a beautiful and traditional call sign.

P.S. There has been one change in the office of the Head of DIU. It is a little aquarium with beautiful yellow and blue fish and a sunk pirate ship having a Russian flag on the bottom…Just for inspiration.