Ukraine is now the sixth largest military in the world, and its army is the largest in Europe in terms of personnel, even larger than the combined forces of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
In recent months, much attention has been paid to a possible agreement between the United States and Ukraine on rare earth minerals, but this often distracts attention from the real and valuable asset that Ukraine possesses today, which is its human capital, and more specifically, its extremely powerful army, writes the Croatian media outlet “Jutarnji”.
Ukraine is now the sixth largest military in the world, and its army is the largest in Europe in terms of personnel, larger than the combined forces of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the army currently consists of 980.000 soldiers, while independent sources claim that the total military personnel in the Ukrainian army is around 2.2 million, with more than 900.000 active.
UKRAINE’S STRONG POINT
However, as Anton Drobovich, head of the department for human rights and war memorialization at the Kiev School of Economics Center, says in his analysis in the National Interest, it is not only about the size of the military forces. According to him, Ukraine is the only non-authoritarian state in the world whose army has long and successful experience in using naval, air and ground forces, along with unmanned aerial vehicles, in large-scale combat against a stronger opponent. Ukraine already has dozens of experienced military units and special forces, specializing exclusively in the use of unmanned systems. Also, unmanned naval systems have become one of the main tools that allowed the Ukrainians to almost completely destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet, forcing its remnants to retreat to distant Russian ports.
PROPOSAL FOR TRUMP
Today, many military experts note that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the military leadership there have greatly underestimated the Ukrainian armed forces. But, as Drobovich points out, the administration of former US President Joe Biden has unfortunately done the same. “Meanwhile, the Ukrainians proved to be much more resilient, adaptable and combat-ready than the Biden administration realized. At that point, the US could have capitalized enormously on strong Ukrainian resistance and Russian weakness,” the author cites an assessment from The Atlantic magazine, which is otherwise sympathetic to the Democratic Party.
While the Biden administration was often criticized by both Ukrainians and allies for slow decision-making, current US President Donald Trump, known for his decisiveness and irrepressibility, has a real opportunity to turn the tide and defeat the Russians, Drobovich points out, with the new White House administration’s bold action to help Ukrainians defeat the invading Russian army, the unforeseen forces of the Ukrainian invasion. ally of the United States in the years to come.
A TURNING POINT
It is clear that Ukraine will demobilize a significant portion of its soldiers after the end of Ukraine’s war for independence from Russia. But to continue to deter the Russians, Ukraine will have a large, capable, and modern army, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, with vast experience in modern warfare, will return from the front and seek new employment.
They could become a solid basis for a new European army, replacing American forces, which could return home or be deployed wherever American interests require. But they could also be part of a completely new security component proposed by the United States, relying on Ukrainian allies and taking into account European interests, which would strengthen the US position in this part of the world with the most capable and committed forces, suggests Anton Drobovich in his analysis.
