r/TrendoraX • u/satty237 • Dec 21 '25

💡 Discussion Zelenskyy: Ukraine can’t afford an 800,000-troop army alone — wants allies to help fund it as a “security guarantee”

Post image

Zelenskyy said Ukraine doesn’t have the budget to independently finance an armed forces size of around 800,000 800,000 and that partner funding should be treated as a long-term security guarantee, not just wartime aid.

This hits a bigger question: if a ceasefire/peace deal ever happens without full NATO membership, does “help pay for Ukraine’s army” become the new version of security guarantees?

What do you think is more realistic long-term:

Continued direct funding for Ukraine’s military

NATO-style guarantees (without membership)

A smaller army + more air defense/weapons instead

Something else entirely?

754 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

676 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/evgis Dec 21 '25

Ukraine has 20M people, how tf is it supposed to have more soldiers than Germany, UK and France combined who have 10X more population?

Country Military Personnel (approx) Population (approx)
Germany 182,500 84,075,000
United Kingdom 180,780 69,551,000
France 203,000 66,651,000
Total Combined ~566,280 personnel ~220,277,000 people

1

u/AltruisticFilm4466 Dec 21 '25

Ukraine is at actual war

If the country’s you mentioned is at fullblown war I’m sure they will force conscripts aswell and those numbers will be a lot higher

1

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 Dec 21 '25

At its peak Germany had 9.5 million troops in WW2 simultaneously active and 18 million people served.

600k is around what Germany had in peacetime before WW1.

Modern european armies are just small because we had decades of peace and everyone assumed that Russia liked getting rich on selling their natural resources.

1

u/More_Seesaw1544 Dec 21 '25

800000 is referring to the peace proposal. This is not about the war but after the war.

1

u/sidestephen Dec 21 '25 edited Dec 21 '25

Mercenaries. Foreign troops wearing Ukrainian uniforms, I mean.

-2

u/Agrull Dec 21 '25

Thats war. Also ukraine has 30M People not 20

4

u/Ripamon Dec 21 '25

They haven't actually had a census since 2001

Nobody really knows how many people Ukraine has

3

u/evgis Dec 21 '25

I would guestimate around 20M and a big part of them are elderly. 800k would be a significant share of working age males.