One of the proposals in the US 28-point peace plan is that Ukraine reduce its armed forces to 600,000 men. Bankova has already rejected that proposal, but it would still leave Ukraine with the second biggest army in Europe after Russia’s and almost twice the size of third place Turkey’s, if the ceasefire deal is agreed.

Pre-war Ukraine had a standing army of only 250,000 men, still the fourth largest army in Europe at the  time, ahead of the UK (184,000) in fourth place, but behind Italy (338,000) in third place. After the start of the war, Bankova quickly declared martial law and launched a mandatory general mobilisation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently said the armed forces total 880,000 men, or 2.3% of its population.

Ukraine’s forces remain smaller than Russia’s, which started the war with some 750,000 men under arms and now has an estimated 1.3mn, or 0.9% to its total population. However, apart from a partial mobilisation in September 2022 after the initial phase of war went badly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been at pains to avoid a politically risky general mobilisation. He has been relying on volunteers signing up in exchange for extraordinarily generous sign up fees and pay that is double or quadruple the average salary. Janis Kluge, fellow at the Stiftung Wissenshaft und Politik (SWP), Eastern Europe and Eurasia Group reports that while problems with recruitment are getting worse, some 30,000 men a month are still signing up to the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) – enough to cover those killed and wounded each month in the war.

The big question is if 600,000 Ukrainian members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) would be enough to deter Russia from a second attack if a ceasefire is signed.

Once it became obvious that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato, Zelenskiy responded by saying Ukraine would have to have its “own Nato” – a powerful domestic army to ensure its security in the face of renewed Russian aggression.

Another point in what has become known as the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan, after its reported authors, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Russian head of the sovereign wealth fund Kirill Dmitriev, is that Nato-supplied powerful weapons, like half a dozen F-16s in Ukraine, will have to be moved to Poland.

Defence sector investments

This is not necessarily a problem as Ukraine is investing heavily in its own defence sector as part of Bankova’s plan to make Ukraine a defence sector hub that was launched in 2023.

From a standing start, Ukraine has almost doubled its domestic drone production in the last year alone to 4mn and increased the supplies of home-made materiel from 40% in January to 60% now, according to Zelenskiy. In addition, it has started production of much sought after missiles, including the Neptune and more recently the Flamingo cruise missile. More is on the way: last week, Zelenskiy signed a letter of intent with French president Emmanuel Macron to buy 100 Rafale warplanes over the next decade. Investment rapidly continues with foreign partners who are now building factories in Ukraine under the so-called Danish model. Ukraine is already a world leader in several military technologies, led by drone tech.

Ukraine’s defence factories could triple their current output tomorrow. The technology is ready, the workers are trained, the production lines are in place. What is missing is money.

“It’s painful to have the capability, to see that what you can produce is urgently needed at the front, but lack contracts and funding to produce it,” said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s former defence minister and now President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s strategic adviser, in an interview with Euromaidan Press.

However, that too may be about to change. In November, a legislative initiative was launched to permit the export of weapons that could take effect early next year. Bankova has been reluctant to sign off on this idea in order to ensure enough weapons at home, but exports would allow defence manufacturers to solicit investment which could lift the value of production from the current circa $5bn a year to anywhere between $20bn and $60bn, according to various estimates.

This is the Finlandisation model. In WWII Finland was attacked by the USSR and lost 10% of its land in the final peace deal, similar to the demands on Ukraine today. It then adopted a policy of strict neutrality and invested heavily in its domestic military to provide an effective backstop against further aggression.

Today, Finland only has only 23,000 personnel in its standing army, but it is one of the best equipped and trained military forces in Europe. But the key is there are another 900,000 reservists, an extraordinary 16% of its entire population. And these are not just hobbyists, but also extremely well trained and equipped soldiers that can be called up to active duty at a moment’s notice. In effect, Finland has the second largest army in Europe, almost as many men as Russia, in a highly effective fighting force.

This could be a very attractive model for Ukraine to follow. If Ukraine followed the same one-in-six reservist model that would be a potential pool of over 6mn fighting men that could be called up at any time – a vast force.

Who has the biggest army?

In the meantime, is 600,000 men sufficient to provide Ukraine with sufficient security to deter a second Russian attack? Some commentators have pointed out that this force is almost double that of Turkey’s standing army (355,000), currently the largest in Europe, which Bankova would struggle to fund.

For comparison, it would also be larger than the US forces which have 453,000 full time personnel, although including reservists more than doubles that number. By far the biggest army in the world is China’s PLA, which has a permanent force of just over 2mn men. Just the PLA’s ground forces number just under one million men. And it has another 500,000 as reservists. Likewise, India has 1.5mn (3.6mn with reservists), North Korea has 1.3mn (plus 600,000) and then comes Russia with 1.3mn (plus 2mn). No other country in Europe, other than Ukraine, breaches half a million.

In fact, a standing army of 600,000 is a major concession by the Kremlin as the previous agreement agreed during the Istanbul peace deal in April 2022 had much tighter and more detailed restrictions on the size and permissible armament of Ukraine’s military.

Largest armies in Europe
Country	Active Personnel	Notes
Russia	1,300,000	Wartime mobilization; includes ground forces, air, navy.
Ukraine	600,000	Wartime force; down from 900,000 due to losses and rotations.
Turkey	355,000	NATO member; large conscript army focused on regional threats.
France	304,000	Professional force; strong expeditionary capabilities.
Italy	338,000	EU/NATO; emphasis on Mediterranean security.
United Kingdom	184,000	All-volunteer; high-tech focus.
Germany	181,000	Expanding via 2022 Zeitenwende policy.
Spain	199,000	NATO; balanced army/navy/air.
Poland	202,000	Rapid growth post-2022; NATO frontline.
Greece	142,000	Conscription-based; Aegean tensions drive size.
Source: bne IntelliNews