When war with Russia ends, how many troops will Ukraine need?
Infantry recruits of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade undergo basic training at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Oct. 11, 2025. (Ed Jones / AFP / Getty Images)
Cutting Ukraine's military might has been raised as among the key points in U.S. President Donald Trump's latest push to end the war at all costs.
The original 28-point peace proposal, criticized in Ukraine for aligning with Russia's sweeping demands, envisioned a 600,000-cap for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Within days, European leaders sent a counterproposal, which reportedly included a push to increase the limitation to 800,000 instead.
While imposing such restrictions on Ukraine, a country that has only been trying to defend itself from the Russian invasion, is unjustified, the post-war Ukrainian army size would realistically be much lower than the cap due to factors such as economic constraints, according to experts who spoke with the Kyiv Independent.
Ukrainian military analyst and retired major Oleksii Hetman believes that 300,000 would suffice, but only if the troops are professional and regularly trained to be ready for a sudden change in situation.
"We will not need nearly a million troops in the Armed Forces post-war, as we have today, because we don't even have enough training grounds where these people could conduct training and combat coordination," Hetman told the Kyiv Independent.
As the U.S. pressures Kyiv and Europe to finally reach a war-ending deal after nearly a year of back-and-forth peace talks, Ukraine is seeking to establish conditions that would help prevent another Russian invasion.
While Ukrainian officials and civil society criticized the original proposal as "capitulation" after nearly four years of full-scale war, CBS News reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official, on Nov. 25 that Ukraine has agreed to the proposal's revised version with the exception of "minor details."
A peace plan approved by Ukraine and the U.S. includes a limitation on the post-war Ukrainian army to 800,000 service members, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Nov. 26, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials.
The D.C.-based think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) echoed Hetman's argument, saying that "the reduction will not be a problem for Ukraine to implement."
"With a ceasefire, it will want to demobilize some of its forces, now estimated at 880,000, and will likely end up below 600,000," the CSIS wrote in its Nov. 24 analysis, adding that the Ukrainian army only had 209,000 active-duty personnel before the full-scale war.
Analyst Hetman, however, stressed that it is crucial for Ukraine to maintain its battle-ready reserves of more than a million people, who undergo training once or twice a year. He added that the entire society needs to be ready for an outbreak of another war, which means both men and women aged 18-60, similarly to Israel, need to be ready for "various combat operations."
"Putting a cap on Ukraine is going to send the wrong signal because in this case Russia is the aggressor and Russia continues to pose a threat."
"Conduct training and be prepared in case of an emergency, so that they know what to do and how to do it, so that there is no chaos, so that it is clear where to go, to which units, what to do there," Hetman said.
The ability to quickly mobilize reserves who are already assigned units is important for defending the country against another potential attack, according to Andriy Tkachuk, a Ukrainian major and political scientist.
"In this regard, we need to look at the Israeli example, where the army can double in size in a day," Tkachuk told the Kyiv Independent.
"I believe that this is the right thing to do, and that everyone should undergo training and be ready to mobilize for the army," he added, supporting the Israeli model of compulsory military training for draft-age men.
While Ukraine should be allowed to dictate its own military size as a sovereign country, it understands it's part of the negotiation process and reducing the army size would likely still be necessary from an economic point of view, Tkachuk said.
Yulia Kazdobina, Senior Fellow of the Security Studies Program at the Ukrainian Prism think-tank, said that the Parliament would have to adopt it as a law on the size of the Ukrainian army if the cap is enforced on Ukraine. But she believes that finding people who are ready to fight — especially after many of those who were ready had volunteered in 2022 and were killed — would be difficult if Ukraine were to have a small army.
Echoing EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas's call that Russia should be limited in its army size and military budgets instead, Kazdobina stressed that "putting a cap on Ukraine is going to send the wrong signal because in this case Russia is the aggressor and Russia continues to pose a threat."
The important details to work out would be "what is and isn't being counted" in the cap, such as the number of reserves and an international monitoring mechanism, according to Steven Horrell, a Senior Fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) think-tank.
"If this limitation becomes key to the success of an overall ceasefire and eventual peace, Ukraine should still press for a higher and higher cap," the former Naval Intelligence Officer told the Kyiv Independent.
"Ultimately, the last 12 years have demonstrated that Ukraine must maintain their own capabilities for national security."
