Armed Forces of Ukraine

Armed Forces of Ukraine (Збройні сили України; Zbroini syly Ukrainy; or ЗСУ; ZSU). The military formations of Ukraine tasked with defending the country, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and its citizens against assault or aggression from abroad. The process of establishing and consolidating the ZSU out of the Soviet Army after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was complicated by the residue of Soviet defence arrangements, economic difficulties in the transition to liberal democratic government with a market economy, and the hostility of the Russian Federation towards an independent Ukrainian state.

On 2 January 1992 it was announced in Kyiv that from the following day all military forces, except strategic forces, on Ukrainian territory would come under the control of the president of Ukraine and minister of defence, including the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) considered as non-strategic. This ran counter to plans in Moscow for integrating Commonwealth of Independent States’ (CIS) armed forces, since Moscow opposed the raising of national armies in member-countries of the CIS. Thus began a prolonged conflict between Moscow and Kyiv over strategic forces and the division of the BSF. On 8 January, Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared the BSF ‘indivisible’ between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was preceded by Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk’s decrees of 12 December 1991 by which he was appointed commander-in-chief and all military formations were subordinated to him and the minister of defence, while the latter was to be the commander of the ZSU. Concurrently, the Supreme Council of Ukraine approved a defence concept according to which there were to be three services (ground forces, navy, and air force), and manpower reduced to 400,000–420,000 soldiers from an estimated million disposed throughout Ukraine at that time.

Major obstacles to building a national army were that ethnic Ukrainians had been serving throughout the Soviet Union, not in their own republic, and that a majority of officers in Ukraine at the time of dissolution were actually Russians. Not all were prepared to take the oath of loyalty. The Officers’ Union played an active part in recalling Ukrainian servicemen to return to Ukraine and encouraging their Russian counterparts to leave.

Inheritor of the second-largest portion of the Soviet military-industrial complex, Ukraine was immediately faced with converting a significant amount of it to civilian consumer goods production as well as ramping up foreign arms sales. The existing establishment being far too large for the country’s needs, these avenues would reduce the burden on the state’s expenditure budget and increase foreign trade revenue, but the process proved difficult for both industry and government.

The Ukrainian air force in particular inherited an embarrassment of riches far in excess of its needs, and more than Ukraine was entitled to under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty—nearly 1,400 combat aircraft, as opposed to 1,000. In addition, the air force had heavy bombers, tankers, and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes. Nor could Ukraine maintain these aircraft. Buyers could not be found; some aircraft were scrapped. The air force (50,000 personnel) and air defence forces (30,000) were merged into one service and aircraft were assigned to them in a ratio of three to one. A lack of funds led to poor training, inadequate pay and housing, and closure of bases.

At the outset, the ZSU as a whole was composed of the remains of a force fit for Cold War superpower confrontation or possibly a continuation of the Second World War. It was totally inappropriate for Ukraine as a post-Soviet state aspiring to joining the European security architecture. The task ahead of reorientation and realignment was formidable. By 1994, the number of personnel had been reduced from 726,000 to 575,000, a military doctrine had been adopted, the defence minister and commander of the Navy replaced, and the START-1 treaty ratified by the Supreme Council of Ukraine. Ukraine undertook disarmament more as a concession to international pressure than a real commitment. In December 1994, Ukraine signed on to the Budapest Memorandum by which it transferred to the Russian Federation its strategic nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances, fuel for its nuclear power plants, and economic assistance. In July 1995, a temporary agreement was reached between Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Boris Yeltsin as to the disposition of the Black Sea Fleet as well as its basing facilities between the two states.

In the 1990s, Ukraine struggled to reform its Armed Forces, aiming for an all-volunteer force trimmed down in size by reason of affordability as well as being tailored to the country’s new security needs as an independent state no longer part of the USSR. Cooperation with the NATO began in this era, including participation in peacekeeping operations and the training of personnel in member countries to gain experience of Western best practices. Following the Orange Revolution of 2004, integration into the Euro-Atlantic alliance was announced, conscription ended, and a smaller, flexible force along NATO lines was contemplated—the transformational model. When Viktor Yanukovych succeeded Viktor Yushchenko as president of Ukraine, and announced in 2010 Ukraine’s non-aligned status, the reform process was interrupted although cooperation with NATO was unaffected.

A more serious approach to military reform was launched after the annexation of the Crimea and the Russian incursion into the Donbas in aid of separatists in 2014. By then, Ukraine was able to deploy only 6,000 combat-ready troops to deal with the Donbas conflict out of a nominal force of 129,000 personnel. Conscription was reinstated in May 2014, volunteer battalions were organized and equipped to reinforce the ZSU units engaged in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Donetsk oblast and Luhansk oblast, and a more hybrid model of military reform adopted. The mobilization and self-organization of Ukrainian society at this time also helped to supply and finance the ZSU, compensating for previous failures in military reform. By 2015, there were 53,000 service personnel engaged in the ATO in Ukraine’s east; the February 2016 call-up raised the total size of the ZSU to 250,000 personnel.

The 2016 military reform program launched by President Petro Poroshenko aimed to bring the ZSU up to NATO standards and to strengthen democratic civilian control of the defence sector. The new hybrid transformational model, combining the traditional mass army with a modern technologically-equipped and mobile force, contained several critical elements. These included an improved command and control structure, the institution of a corps of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) as well as of Special Forces Operators, a substantial increase in training, advice, and intelligence assistance from NATO countries, and establishment of Territorial Defence battalions as a reserve for the ZSU. These reforms resulted in greater flexibility and adaptability of ZSU units in combat situations.

Among the international military assistance programs was Canada’s Operation Unifier. Launched at Ukraine’s request in 2015, the operation involved some 300 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel training over 42,000 ZSU and security personnel in battlefield tactics and advanced military skills in Ukraine itself. Eventually, much of the training passed over into ZSU hands with the Canadians acting as mentors and the Ukrainians becoming the trainers. From 2022, the training continued in third-country locations, while the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) delivered military aid to Ukraine and the CAF assisted with the processing of displaced Ukrainian civilians transiting through Polish reception centres. Canada was part of the USA-led Security Assistance Group-Ukraine providing equipment and training support for the ZSU in wartime.

On the eve of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the aggressor had an overwhelming preponderance in personnel and equipment—four times as many troops, twice as many reservists; five times as many tanks, eight times as many self-propelled artillery pieces, seven times as many multiple rocket launchers; eighteen times as many fighter aircraft; and a defence budget four times as large. Ukraine’s overall deficit was accounted for by thirty years of reductions, sell-offs, and faulty procurement policies.

The Russian war against Ukraine was a real test for the ZSU which used skill, flexibility, and ingenuity to inflict disproportionate losses on the enemy. By its third anniversary, the Russian Federation had lost nearly 900,000 troops killed and wounded, as well as a commensurate amount of equipment (estimated at 100,000 ships, aircraft, tanks, helicopters, artillery, and rocket launchers); Ukraine’s losses were 45,000 dead service personnel. Among the successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were turning back the invading army at the outset, the sinking of the Russian Navy flagship Moskva and elimination of the opponent’s navy from the Black Sea altogether, the attacks on Russian oil refineries, weapons depots, and supply lines deep inside the Russian Federation, the invasion of Kursk oblast and holding Russian territory for months on end, and the introduction of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, commonly termed drones) as a vital new component of twenty-first century warfare. After three years of war, the Russian Federation still only held some 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and was succeeding largely by mercilessly bombing civilian targets and destroying Ukrainian economic infrastructure.

It would not have been possible for the ZSU to hold the Russian invaders at bay for those first three years without external assistance in the form of military aid and supplies, financial loans and grants to the government of Ukraine, as well as moral support. By way of illustration, in 2023 Ukraine received from Slovakia and Poland deliveries of Soviet-era MiG 29 fighter jets, later augmented with US-made F-16s supplied by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. Altogether Ukraine obtained nearly fifty foreign fighters, including 18 F-16s and three French Mirage fighters of a promised twenty. The United States provided its Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), a ground-launched long-range ballistic missile capable of striking deep into Russian territory. It also sent more than 40 of its High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) along with ammunition. Ukraine also made use of the British- and French-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. In air defence, the US-supplied Patriot, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles were useful, as were the German-made Gepard anti-aircraft guns against the Russian Federation’s Shahed kamikaze drones. Ukraine also received from the US Army Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and armoured personnel carriers, as well as Challenger 2 main battle tanks from the United Kingdom, and German-made Lepard tanks from several countries. The French AMX-10 PC and German Marder armoured vehicles found their way into the ranks of the ZSU. The monetary value of assistance to Ukraine from the United States, and from the EU, the United Kingdom, and Canada, was approximately equal.

Ukraine was in the meantime developing some of its own new weapons, including long-range explosive drones, uncrewed naval drones, the Neptune anti-ship missile, ballistic missiles, the Palianytsia ‘missile-drone,’ the howitzer called Bohdana, and a laser weapon named the Tryzub for use against aircraft. At the same time, there was a shortage of personnel in the ground forces to which President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky responded with a recruiting drive aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds. In 2024, the total ground forces numbered 780,000, of which 500,000 were regular army infantry, and the rest made up of troops from the National Guard, Territorial Defence Forces, Naval Infantry (Marines), Airborne Assault Forces, and Special Operations personnel. In February 2025, a major structural change was introduced to consolidate brigades as the basic unit into corps, larger units intended to cope with the challenge of fighting a war of attrition along a very lengthy front.

A major turning point occurred following the return of Donald J. Trump to the White House in Washington, DC, for his second term as President of the United States. The fullness of US support of Ukraine came into question. Relations between the US and the Russian Federation began to be restored. The supply of weapons and the provision of intelligence to Ukraine was temporarily suspended. Without American aid Ukraine could hold out for half a year or more, depending on how rapidly its domestic defense production was accelerated and on Europe’s ability to fill the American gap. In any case, by fighting the Russian Federation to a standstill the ZSU had shown itself to be the best European army of the twenty-first century.

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Bohdan Harasymiw
[This article was written in 2025.]