Journalist Yuri Butusov agreed to become a freelance advisor to Defense Minister Andrei Taran for two months. On Sunday, December 20, Butusov wrote about this following a meeting with the Minister of Defense.
According to the journalist, the minister offered him four positions, which “do not influence anything in the Ministry of Defense, and do not provide any access to decision-making”:
- Head of the Department for Regulatory and Methodological Support and Monitoring of Real Estate and Lands of the Ministry of Defense;
- head of one of the directorates in the military-technical policy department;
- Head of the Information Policy Directorate;
- freelance advisor to the Minister of Defense on a voluntary basis to highlight the problems of incompetence and corruption in the structures of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“By offering me positions, the minister recognized the objectivity and fairness of my criticism of the Ministry of Defense, and would like me to take into account the position of the ministry in my work and thereby help organize a correct information policy,” Butusov said.
As a result, the journalist agreed to accept the offer to become a freelance adviser to the Minister of Defense for a period of two months “without a salary, without an office, without any authority.”
“I will not have my own office in the Ministry of Defense, I will not” resolve issues “, arrange” my people “, I remain a journalist,” Butusov stressed and added that after two months, he would prepare a final report on the problems of defense planning and development of the Ukrainian army.
