Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko has offered to increase the size of the army to 250,000 people, according to a draft law registered in the Verkhovna Rada on Monday.
The draft law envisages increasing the size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to 250,000 people, including 204,000 servicemen.
“The draft law has been developed for legal regulation of the size of Ukraine’s Armed Forces which will ensure the timely deployment of a particular group of forces for deterrence, resistance to armed aggression and liquidation of the armed conflict,” the draft law says.
The size of the Ukrainian army at the beginning of 2014 stood at 168,000 people, including 125,000 servicemen, according to the media. At the end of 2014, the number grew to 232,000 people.
In December 2014, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said it is necessary to increase the size of the army to 250,000 people. Poltorak said also that Ukraine’s Defense Ministry plans to call up for military service up to 40,000 people and train 10,500 contract soldiers.
The Russian president compared in late January Ukraine’s army to a NATO legion with a geopolitical goal to contain Russia in late January. “In essence, this is already not an army, but a foreign legion, in this case NATO’s foreign legion that certainly does not pursue the goal of defending Ukraine’s national interests,” the president said.
Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Oleksadr Turchynov said in mid-December that Ukrainian authorities had set an ambitious task of building one of the strongest armies in Europe and bringing Crimea back from Russia. He said the country’s Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry would get a more than 10% share in the total budget spending for 2015 estimated at $31 billion. A total of 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) of cash-strapped Ukraine would go to the army.
2 Comments
Karol
Dlhé roky nebudú mať ľudia z Ukrajiny čo jesť,tam ich doviedol Porošenko so svojou chuntou a z čoho by tú armádu chcel financovať.Porošenko je človek bez chrbtovej kosti len vyhlasuje somariny aby sa kasal pred svetom a pritom je to len obyčajný blbec.
Brodersdorf
Poroshenko did not open a cemetery for 250,000 dead bodies just to have holes in the ground. He needs bodies to fill them. Not sure when the Ukrainian people will realize they were sold to the USA. I wonder if there is a section in that cemetery for US, UK, CA, and other NATO soldiers.