Ukraine insists on the necessity of having an army of 800,000 servicemen in the revised version of the U.S. peace plan to end nearly four years of war with Russia, LETA reports citing DPA.
"This is the actual number of the army today, and an agreement has been reached on this issue with the armed forces," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said to reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.
He added that this point in the current draft of the peace plan, which consists of 20 points, has already been sufficiently revised. The initial version of the American peace plan, which became known in November, mentioned the maximum allowable size of the Ukrainian army – 600,000 servicemen.
However, observers doubt that there are actually that many soldiers left in the army. According to the prosecutor's office, more than 300,000 cases of desertion or unauthorized departure from the unit have been recorded since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In October, a record number of such cases was registered – over 21,600, and since November this data has been declared confidential.
Before the war, Ukraine had a standing army of about 290,000 people. To offset Russia's numerical advantage, Kyiv expects that Western allies will make a significant contribution to military spending in the event of a peace agreement.
According to the International Monetary Fund, before the war, Ukraine was the poorest country in Europe. Currently, more than 40% of Ukraine's state budget is covered by foreign aid.
