Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Stanislav Haider, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Major General Volodymyr Koval and Head of the NGO Boryviter Military School Orest Bilous signed a Memorandum of Partnership and Cooperation.  

Owing to the Lessons Learned methodology, the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine will have a better picture of the war and the demands of the frontline, and will be able to make effective leadership decisions based on evidence-based analytical data.

The NGO Boryviter Military School will teach the methodology and how to build up relevant processes that will enable the military and political leadership of the country to perform their functions based on real combat experience.  

The methodology is fully based on NATO principles.

"We are glad to be implementing important changes together with the government. Everyone has a clear understanding that this is necessary. We have studied NATO's approach and, in particular, the American approach to Lessons Learned, and based on this, we are developing this process in Ukraine," said Orest Bilous.

With the introduction of analytics, military units will be able to carefully examine their operations, quickly make conclusions, and take corrective actions as needed. This, in turn, will save the lives of soldiers, minimize or even avoid losses, and improve the quality of combat missions in general.

Regarding the role of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine in building the capabilities of the Lessons Learned:

The Ministry of Defense will develop a policy on information and analytical activities that will cover all the Defense Forces and data from the strategic to the tactical level; educate and train analysts to work with the Lessons Learned database; interact with partners to share data related to experience.

"Our partners are interested in sharing the experience gained by Ukrainian defenders at the front in the fight against the russian enemy. And it is the implementation of the Lessons Learned methodology and a unified coordinate system that will allow us to be "on the same page" with our foreign colleagues, as we will exchange information in a form understandable to all," said Stanislav Haider.

The Deputy Minister of Defense also added that the information accumulated at all levels will serve to identify more specifically the problems that hinder the strengthening of the capabilities of the Ukrainian military.

For reference: Lessons Learned is a methodology developed by NATO to effectively process the experience that can be applied to achieve improvements and avoid recurring mistakes. 

The Boryviter Military School was established in April 2022 in response to the military invasion of russia. Its mission is to support the Defense Forces in the fight against the russian enemy by providing intensive and free training courses to Ukrainian military personnel, as well as to promote the development of Ukraine's capacity to independently provide modern and effective military training in accordance with the standards of NATO member countries. In addition, the organization is developing its own analytical capabilities and a reform project office. The Boryviter Military School is a non-profit organization.