Ukraine's Millennial War Barons

in crisis, age means nothing

When a nation is in existential crisis, you have to go with what works or you and your nation disappear.

It focuses the national mind.

As I read through Marc Campion’s article in Bloomberg, it became more and more clear that the leadership in Ukraine decided that if big changes were going to be made in time, they would have to be made by the under-50 crowd.

The Soviet Union was barely a memory to them. They grew up on a different planet. The older cohort Ukrainian GenX were educated and formed in the final decades of the Soviet Union, and older than that, you’re completely the Soviet man and all the worldview and mindset that comes with it.

Since I started writing and talking about Ukraine here and over at the OG blog starting in 2005, the one thing that continues to come in to sharp focus is that to achieve what Ukraine wants - to join the West - one of the first things they need to do is rip out the deep rooted culture of corruption.

That is why this caught my eye;

Late last month, Zelenskiy replaced Ukroboronprom’s chief executive, a politician, with Herman Smetanin, the 31-year-old head of the Malyshev tank factory. Days later, Kamyshin dissolved the company and replaced it with a more corporate joint stock company, rebranded as Ukraine Defense Industry.

“Herman has 3 major tasks: 1. Increase local production of ammunition and weapons. 2. Build efficient anti-corruption infrastructure. 3. Transform the company,” Kamyshin tweeted on the day Smetanin was hired.

Yes, at 31, his nation is in the middle of an existential fight and his #2 priority while running Ukraine’s largest defense corporation is anti-corruption.

Smart, and right on target. In the short term and the long term - Ukraine has to break the corruption fever.

He’s not the only 30-something leading the defense industrial revival. The Kamyshin mentioned above?

Ukraine’s 39-Year-Old Arms Chief Ramps Up Production in Face of Missile Hits…Just months after he was tapped to oversee Ukraine’s arms industry, Oleksandr Kamyshin says it produced more mortar and artillery shells in June than it made in all of last year.

How many more is a secret, he says. While that result is a success in a country where many of his factories are routinely under attack by Russian missiles, Kamyshin says he still has a long way to go.

“I wouldn’t say that we were that great for managing to increase ammunition production in three months,” he said in an interview at his Kyiv office. “We produced so little in 2022.”

Smart…and so far, making a difference.