Ukraine will not agree to any demands from Vladimir Putin to cut its army by five times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
According to Zelensky, “a significant reduction in Ukraine’s army” would be a key issue in any potential peace negotiations. “It’s clear: if we were able to build an army of more than 800,000 troops, then together with Europe, we have a force capable not only of defending ourselves but of pushing back against Putin. The quickest route for him is to pressure the U.S. so Ukraine isn’t in NATO, and to push our allies to force us into reducing the size of our army by five times,” Zelensky said. He emphasized that Ukraine would not allow this to happen.
According to Zelensky, at the start of the full-scale war Russia deployed 200,000 troops to Ukraine, a number that has now risen to 608,000. He warned that without strong security guarantees, Putin could further expand his military and target other countries “following the Crimea playbook.”
The demand to reduce Ukraine’s army to a minimum was part of Russia’s initial peace proposals, which Moscow submitted to Kyiv in early March 2022. At the time, Russia called for a fivefold reduction of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from their pre-war size, limiting them to 50,000 personnel, including 1,500 officers. Moscow also demanded that Ukraine retain no more than four warships, 55 helicopters, and 300 tanks.
In January 2025, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the Kremlin’s position, that Vladimir Putin would insist on a sharp reduction in Ukraine’s army during negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.
