Ukraine without NATO membership will need a lot of money to deter the Russian army - Zelensky
Kyiv • UNN
Ukraine needs a lot of money to maintain an army comparable to Russia's 1.3-1.5 million troops. The President emphasized the need for NATO membership to reduce these costs.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that without NATO membership, Ukraine would need a lot of money to deter the 1.3-1.5 million-strong Russian army. We are talking about tens of billions. Zelensky said this during a speech at the Munich Security Conference, an UNN correspondent reports.
Details
"It is quite difficult for the Armed Forces to hold such a large, long border, so we will need a large armed force, which we will need right now if we are not a NATO member. And that is why NATO should be in Ukraine. This means that we will need an armed force that would be comparable to Russia's armed forces. And there are 1.3-1.5 million soldiers there. So we need to have money for this. Now it is a big deficit for us. It is more than 40 billion annually. We will need the money and weapons that we have prescribed in our Victory Plan. And if Putin launches a new invasion, we could use these weapons," Zelenskyy said.
Recall
According to Zelenskyy, Russia has lost almost 250,000 of its military in deaths and more than 600,000 wounded since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.