Ukraine Agrees to Cap Army at 800,000, FT Reports

Ukraine has agreed to cap the size of its army at 800,000 as part of ongoing negotiations to end the war, it was reported on Tuesday.

Senior Ukrainian officials told the Financial Times that they are pleased with the outcome, which follows an earlier US-Russia brokered plan which would have limited Ukraine’s army to some 600,000 troops.

A source told RBC-Ukraine later on Tuesday that the revised US peace plan draft removes language about “limiting” the size of the Ukrainian army to 600,000 personnel, changing it to allowing it to “remain” at a certain level.

The modification suggests that Ukraine’s troops will be permitted to remain at their current or a very similar level.

The amended proposal reported in the FT would allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to remain the second-largest force in the region after Russia and would not entail a significant cut from its wartime size of 900,000.

The standing army of pre-war Ukraine was around 250,000, which was the fourth-largest army in Europe at the time, outnumbering the UK’s 184,000 and Italy’s 338,000.

However, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to diverge from Kyiv’s reported position on Tuesday, warning that Ukraine’s army should not have any limits.

Speaking after a virtual meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, Macron called for a “strong Ukrainian army” without “limitation” in order to guarantee that the peace deal would hold.

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“Discussions in Geneva have shown that there should be no limitations to the Ukrainian army,” he added.

Macron was reiterating earlier comments that Ukraine’s first line of defense in case of a peace deal with Russia would be regenerating its own military.

The original US-Russia plan for “peace,” which was made up of 28-points, was condensed to 19 after consultations between the US and Ukraine in Geneva over the weekend.

Although the full details of the new draft are not currently publicly available, it is thought that it leaves the door open for Ukraine’s Nato membership, offers more concrete security guarantees and cuts a clause specifying full amnesty for war crimes on both sides.

On Monday, Ukraine’s Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk outlined a number of “red lines” that “nobody can cross” in peace talks with Russia.

“No limits on the Ukrainian Armed Forces” was among those red lines, alongside “no recognition of Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories” and “no veto over Ukraine’s choice of future alliances.”

After the Coalition of the Willing meeting on Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer affirmed that President Volodymyr Zelensky was willing to accept “in large part the majority of” the revised peace deal after “progress was made” in crunch talks in Geneva.