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KIEV, May 24 (RIA Novosti, Olga Bernatskaya) - NATO has allocated about $800,000 to train civilian employees for Ukraine's Defense Ministry, a Ukrainian military official said Wednesday.
"With financial aid from NATO, experts in military-civilian relations, defense strategy, budget planning, and logistics will be trained," said Major General Leonid Golopatyuk, director of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff's Euro-Atlantic integration department.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Tuesday instructed the government to form a committee to coordinate preparations for the country's accession to NATO.
The new committee will serve as a consultative body reporting to the president, and will prepare proposals and recommendations to improve Ukraine's integration into Europe, coordinate state activities aimed at joining NATO, and develop and implement draft legislation and the NATO Action Plan.
Golopatyuk said Tuesday a NATO-funded program would start early June to scrap a total of 135 million small arms, 1,000 portable anti-aircraft missile launchers, and 133,000 tons of ammunition in Ukraine's army.
