Ukraine is seeking at least ten years of financial support to maintain an army of 800,000 troops capable of repelling a new Russian attack.
A high-ranking Ukrainian source told AFP this.
The agency does not specify whether it refers to 800,000 military personnel on active duty or the total number of forces including the reserve. The cost of such a model depends on this — the permanent maintenance of personnel and the training of reservists require different expenditures.
How much other countries spend on defense
From AIN's side, let us note that the defense budgets of other states can serve as a reference point. However, they also cover weapons procurement, infrastructure, research, and other expenditures, so it will not be possible to divide the budget by the number of military personnel and obtain the cost of maintaining one soldier.
In 2025, Germany had a defense budget of $107.3 billion. At the end of that year, 184,200 military personnel served in the Bundeswehr. The United Kingdom had a budget of $94.3 billion, and the size of its regular armed forces at the beginning of 2026 reached almost 137,000 people, excluding reserves.
India, with a defense budget of $78.3 billion in 2025, maintained approximately 1.4 million military personnel in service.
These countries are among the top ten states with the largest defense budgets. Ukraine, meanwhile, closed out the top ten in this ranking with $44.4 billion, given the current strength of Ukraine's Defense Forces of between 880,000 and 900,000 amid war and comprehensive support from partners.
A separate example is Pakistan. According to IISS data, in 2025 its armed forces numbered approximately 660,000 military personnel — 560,000 in the ground forces, 70,000 in the air force, and 30,000 in the navy. For defense services in the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, the country allocated 2.55 trillion Pakistani rupees (according to various sources, this is a range of $11-12 billion).
Comparison of countries' defense budgets in 2025 / IISS
Thus, if we proportionally recalculate the defense budgets of Germany and Great Britain for 800,000 military personnel, we get about $450–550 billion per year. Based on the ratio of the budget and the size of the Armed Forces of Pakistan, which also lives under the threat of conflict with a larger neighbor, India, the amount would be approximately $13.5–14.5 billion.
Approximately the same figures are shown by the recalculation of costs in the case of a system with reservists using the example of Taiwan. However, everything will depend on the proportion of regular forces and the number of reservists.
How the model of an army with a large reserve works
One option for Ukraine could be a combination of a smaller standing army with a large trained reserve. According to the IISS, in May 2025 Israel had 169,500 military personnel on active duty and 465,000 reservists.
After the budget increase in September 2025, the total expenditures of its Ministry of Defense were supposed to rise to approximately 135.7 billion shekels: this is approximately $42.79 billion. Of these, almost 39 billion shekels ($12.30 billion) was allocated to personnel.
Taiwan has a ratio of standing forces and a large reserve. According to IISS data for 2022, it had 169,000 military personnel on active duty and about 1.66 million reservists. For 2026, the Taiwanese government envisioned defense expenditures in the amount of 949.5 billion Taiwanese dollars, or approximately $31.2 billion. This is the highest defense budget in Taiwan's entire history.