Russia prepared Donbas for capture since the mid-90s. Colonel of the Armed Forces provided evidence.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces will change their organizational system by April. The corps that were disbanded in the 2000s will now be recreated, similar to the Russian army. Russia, at that Time, caused the demilitarization of eastern Ukraine, reported former press service employee of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Valeriy Korol.

According to him, in the late 1990s, the Ministry of Defense began to form an army corps in Eastern Ukraine with headquarters in Donetsk. However, its existence did not exceed two years, as at that time the political leadership abandoned this idea so as not to offend Russia. The Russian Federation perceived the creation of the corps as a hostile military move.

'If the army corps had been in Donbas, the situation in 2014 could have developed quite differently. However, it turned out that combat units (although they were not in the best condition during Yanukovych's time) were located far from this region,' noted Valeriy Korol.

The Head of the Defense Planning Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Brigadier General Yevheniy Ostryanskyi, noted that in 2014 the Russian Federation created army corps in the occupied territories of Donbas: one each in 'DPR' and 'LPR'. These formations, which were managed and armed by Russians, numbered a total of 35,000 'bayonets,' and with the beginning of the full-scale aggression, they were incorporated into two Russian armies.

After gaining independence, Ukraine inherited from the USSR remnants of the Soviet army, which had nearly 1 million soldiers. Within 5-7 years, the army was reduced to 350,000, which occurred not only due to economic problems - this was in line with trends in other countries, noted Ostryanskyi. At that time, the old Soviet equipment and ammunition arsenals were also massively destroyed. As part of the 'Partnership for Peace' program, Ukraine destroyed 1.5 million rifles, pistols, machine guns, 133 thousand tons of ammunition, and 1000 portable surface-to-air missile systems.

It was previously reported that the transition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to a corps system is expected to be completed by April this year.

It was also revealed that the General Staff approved several future commanders. The position of the corps commander is a general's position, and it is expected that well-known brigadiers will become generals - such as Andriy Biletskyi, Roman Darmohrai, Dmytro Voloshin, Denys Prokopenko.