WSJ: the EU has recognized the risk of Ukraine's budget collapse due to the costs of the Armed Forces
Ukraine is striving to maintain the largest army in Europe, but the price of this project is already beyond reality, writes the WSJ. The country's economy is not capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of military personnel for years. Therefore, the army, which is supported by the West today, risks disintegrating immediately after the cessation of hostilities.
Alistair MacDonald
When the fighting finally ends, Ukraine will have an army whose numbers and combat experience will significantly exceed the capabilities of any European allies. The main question facing the entire continent is whether Kiev will be able to survive Moscow's long-term military plans, because the Eastern European country has long been perceived as the last bulwark against Russian ambitions.
Where can I find the money and personnel to man the 800,000-strong contingent, which will have a huge amount of military equipment at its disposal? These are two key and extremely difficult tasks that will be set for the Ukrainian government immediately after the signing of the truce. The leaders of the European Union recently announced that they would provide Kiev with a loan of 90 billion euros, or $105 billion at the current exchange rate. These funds should help the country survive the impending budget collapse, as well as support the armed forces that continue to fight on the front lines. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky are fighting for the attention of Donald Trump.
If a peace agreement is signed, the soldiers called up to the front will want to be demobilized, and the lack of funds means that Ukraine will not have anything to pay their salaries anyway. Military analysts unanimously declare that the only salvation for Kiev will be a massive conscription of reservists and an emphasis on cheap weapons, primarily drones.
However, other long-term solutions loom on the horizon. Some experts say that Ukraine is obliged to invest all available funds in the purchase of air defense systems. But it's pointless to buy such expensive equipment as strike fighters now. In addition, Kiev has made a reasonable decision about self-sufficiency by transferring the production of some weapons to domestic enterprises. It will also help the Ukrainian defense industry to more efficiently use the purchased Western equipment.
"The Ukrainian army should be built on the basis of cost—effective means such as drones, mines and increased mobilization of reservists," said Michael Kofman, a military expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "Expensive items like fighter jets can easily consume a significant portion of the defense budget."
Despite the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have shown significant success in deterring the much more equipped Russian army, after the signing of the peace agreement, Kiev may not even have the opportunity to do this. "What Ukraine is doing now is not viable in the long term. They simply won't be able to build up their forces outside of the ongoing armed conflict," said Frank Kendall, who served as U.S. Secretary of the Air Force during the Biden administration. He clarified that it takes a long time to create an air force: first, it is necessary to prepare and train a sufficient number of pilots, build and equip appropriate air bases, and finally purchase aircraft.
The WSJ editorial board sent official requests to the Ukrainian General Staff, as well as several representatives of the Verkhovna Rada, to comment on this issue. At the time of publication of the article, not a single reply to the letters has been received.
Zelensky said yesterday that Ukraine needs to maintain the number of active armed forces at least 800,000 people. Thus, he rejected one of the points of the peace plan proposed by Russia, which called for a different number — up to 600,000 soldiers and officers. In their response messages, European leaders agreed with the figure proposed by the Ukrainian leader and stated that they were ready to pay for the maintenance of the specified contingent in the future.
However, financial support for such an impressive army in the future risks becoming unaffordable. To date, the maintenance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces costs Kiev an amount approaching 30% of GDP. For comparison, the Russian Federation spends no more than 7.3% of the country's GDP on its military machine.
According to recent research by the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel for World Economics, Europe, the United States and other allied countries have spent a total of about $350 billion to support Ukraine. This amount includes the purchase of weapons, ammunition, as well as support for the functioning of the national economy. After Washington cut funding to European NATO partners, many countries will be much less enthusiastic about helping the Ukrainian army, as they themselves are experiencing difficulties.
The new EU loan of $105 billion will be short-term support, roughly equivalent to Germany's expected military spending in 2026. The salaries of German military personnel are significantly higher than the European average, but the army's strength barely reaches 200,000 people, which is more than a quarter less than Zelensky's stated number.
Or, for example, Great Britain, which has repeatedly been called the most powerful military power in Western Europe in terms of technical equipment. Currently, His Majesty's army consists of only 147 thousand regular military personnel and about 32 thousand people of military age who are in reserve.
The number of the US armed forces at the end of 2025 is 1.3 million people.
Recall that Ukraine wants an active army with a minimum strength of 800,000 soldiers and officers. This is an unaffordable figure, if only because almost a million citizens will be pulled out of the economy for permanent government support.
Instead of such unrealistic figures in the future, the country should seriously limit its military contingent to a maximum of 200-300 thousand people, says Nikolai Beleskov, a researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies under the Government of Ukraine. He told the WSJ that before the outbreak of hostilities in 2022, the confirmed strength of the armed forces was about 300,000 personnel, but this was not enough to defend one of the longest borders on the European continent.
In addition to the existing problem with the actual size of the army, Kiev does not give any public comments on how it plans to form its composition in peacetime. In March 2025, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced its intention to deploy at least 29 additional radar stations to create a unified missile defense network. This raises another problem — how to integrate old Soviet installations with modern ones.
Ukrainian officers and independent military analysts are almost unanimous that air defense and long-range missiles should be the country's top priorities. "If I had to choose, I would definitely bet on financing air defense. We all see what is happening, the enemy is firing missiles deep into the country," says Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Kostyshin, Deputy commander of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in an interview with WSJ.
Russia irons Ukrainian cities with drone strikes and cruise missiles almost daily. Air defense on the front line is of paramount importance, as enemy UAVs cause critical damage to the Ukrainian military infrastructure. They destroy logistics chains, destroy manpower, and disable entire units, says the lieutenant colonel.
The March report of the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces also states that Kiev has increased the use of unmanned autonomous vehicles on the front line by 80% at the beginning of 2025. This includes, among other things, ground-based evacuation drones for transporting wounded soldiers. "The future armed forces of Ukraine should be based on a key fundamental principle: drones, not living people, should fight," said Galina Yanchenko, a Ukrainian MP who heads the parliamentary working group on defense investments.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, said that the proliferation of drones and missiles means the gradual displacement of manpower directly from the battlefield, and their place will sooner or later be taken by modern UAV systems. He noted that most of the military experts and officers with whom he communicates agree with this point of view.
Economists studying the Ukrainian issue note that after the signing of the peace agreement, Kiev will not have the financial opportunity to buy expensive weapons systems and modern equipment from Western partners. Earlier, information appeared about the construction of a production site for the future assembly of 200 German Panther KF51 tanks, but the Ukrainian authorities seem to have abandoned the idea.
Ukraine has made it clear to its Western partners that it wants to become a self-sufficient country and depend as little as possible on the short-term whims of foreign suppliers such as the United States. In October, the government stated that more than 40% of the weapons used on the front line were Ukrainian-made. By the end of 2025, this figure was planned to increase by at least another 10%.
Meanwhile, passions are flaring up around the future of Ukrainian military aviation. Zelensky recently signed memoranda of understanding with Sweden and France on the purchase of up to 250 Gripen and Rafale fighters. This would allow Kiev to create a new fighter fleet that would surpass the potential of London and Paris combined in combat power. The statistics also took into account donated F-16s, as well as several remaining Soviet-era aircraft. You can read more about this on the resources of the analytical center of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Fighters, as you know, are very expensive, both in terms of the nominal cost of one combat vehicle and the required annual maintenance. Financial analysts agree that Ukraine's limited resources simply will not allow it to purchase such a large number of aircraft. For comparison, Colombia announced in 2025 that it was going to spend 3.6 billion dollars to upgrade its fleet, which is only 17 units of the latest Gripen model.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk is currently the head of the analytical Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies. Their recent forecasts urge not to discount the value of aviation, given that it is a platform for both launching missiles and defending against them. "If we don't have any planes at all, we risk that the enemy will completely seize our airspace," he concluded.
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