Zelensky says Ukraine could mobilise another 500,000 soldiers against Putin’s war

Zelensky says he told army’s General Staff that he needed more arguments to support the move

Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian military officials have proposed mobilising 450,000-500,000 more people into the armed forces to fight against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The military officials made the suggestion at a recent meeting with Ukraine’s top general, asking for prompt mobilisation of 450,000-500,000 people, amid apprehensions from the Ukrainian president.

Calling it a “highly sensitive issue” and the call up numbers “very significant”, Mr Zelensky said he told the army’s General Staff that he needed more arguments to support the move because it involved factors other than defence capability and finances.

"I said I would need more arguments to support this move. Because first of all, it’s a question of people, secondly, it’s a question of fairness, it’s a question of defence capability, and it’s a question of finances," Mr Zelensky said in his year-end press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Mr Zelensky refused sternly to sign a law mobilising women into the army.

He added that the military and the Kyiv administration will discuss this, with inputs from the ministry of finances on how to fund this move of mobilisation, before deciding whether to send the proposal to the parliament.

Additionally, Ukraine will need 500bn hryvnias (£10.6bn) to support the army’s proposal for mobilising tens of thousands, he said.

The total number of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield fighting back the Russian invasion since February 2022 is not clear and not published by the Zelensky administration. Similarly the casualties witnessed by Ukrainian troops are not public and treated as a state secret, like in Russia. However, US officials estimate that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and injured.

Russia has had 315,000 of its troops killed or injured in Ukraine, the equivalent of nearly 90 per cent of the total number of soldiers it sent to war when the invasion first began, a declassified US intelligence report recently said.

Vladimir Putin’s personnel losses in the 22 months of the conflict have set back Russia’s military modernisation by 18 years, a source familiar with the assessment told Reuters.

The numbers represent a far greater tally than Russian officials have ever admitted to, and also outstrip Western estimates of Ukrainian losses.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a total of 360,000 personnel in February last year. After failing in its attempts to rapidly capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Moscow has since launched several major recruitment drives to further bolster its numbers on the frontline, and replace tiring troops.

Around one million people are expected to be under arms from Ukraine’s side and on Tuesday, Russia said it plans to bolster its ranks to 1.5 million service members.

The Russian president ordered another significant increase to the country’s military recruitment efforts earlier this month, stating his goal of increasing troop numbers by nearly 170,000 to reach a total of 1.32 million.

Mr Putin said he signed the decree in response to “the aggressive activities of the Nato bloc” and in order to further the aims of the special military operation in Ukraine, the phrase the Kremlin uses – and forces Russian media to use – to describe its invasion.