Zaluzhnyi said that the draft law on strengthening mobilization was not an initiative of the General Staff.
He noted that the General Staff and the Armed Forces only voiced their needs for the next year to the Defense Ministry - in weapons, ammunition and recruits, and "everything else is formed by the bodies that have the authority to do so." He also suggested that it was the Defense Ministry that requested this version of the bill.
"The Armed Forces or the General Staff have not made any requests to the Cabinet of Ministers regarding any draft laws and cannot do so, because they are deprived of such a function as a legislative initiative. Therefore, the Armed Forces have not submitted any documents to the Cabinet of Ministers and have not submitted any projects or bills and cannot do so because they are deprived of such a function as a legislative initiative," Zaluzhnyi said.
At the same time, he noted that representatives of the General Staff worked as part of a working group, but there they "primarily made sure that they did not violate the mechanisms used in military management, directly in combat operations, so that certain issues that could harm the activities of the military command were not adopted at the legislative level."
"In such a working group, we worked together with the Ministry of Defense, and I understand that the Ministry of Defense probably submitted these legislative initiatives directly to the Cabinet of Ministers," the chief said.
