Last year, Ukraine mobilized 30 thousand people every month. Russia still has advantage, - Zelenskyy
The largest mobilization in Ukraine took place in 2024. Every month, 30,000 people were drafted into the army.
This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with The Economist, Censor.NET reports.
The journalist noted that there are not enough people on the front line in Ukraine and some units are staffed by only 30%.
Zelenskyy was asked if he regretted not agreeing with former Chief of Staff Valeriy Zaluzhnyi's decision to mobilize an additional 500,000 people when he asked for it in 2023.
"Don't live in fantasies, please. Don't live in fantasies that someone is launching something, inventing something, etc. The biggest mobilization... There is a lot of information in the media about how to fight, how many people need to be mobilized, etc. So the largest mobilization was last year, 30,000 per month. I think it was a lot. Yes, it was a question from the military, from the generals, what did they do, that Ukraine mobilized 30,000 per month. Russia mobilizes 45,000 per month. And this is the real picture, and the army is 1.5, 1.9 times, as I said, about twice as big as ours, basically," the president said.
According to him, Russia also has many problems in supplying its army.
"In some areas where we have complications, for example, 60% or 50% or 70% in a brigade, yes, they have the same problems. They have the same problems, the same issues, the same challenges. The difference is that if their soldiers do not go straight, they kill them. That's why they have problems at the front; that's why their guys (Russians - ed.) go straight ahead. Because otherwise they get killed. And we don't know the real number of people, how many people they have killed themselves, their soldiers. We do not know this number. We only know the number of people we killed or wounded on the battlefield. That is, no one really knows. Because their mobilization is 45,000, which is more than ours. Yes, in some brigades they have more supplies. But you were not in these brigades, in the Russian brigades, were you? Well, there is a lack of equipment, there are big problems there, people don't want to go there, they are all in shock, they run away, they are forced to shoot, they are threatened. You have to understand that their situation is no better. This is disinformation, this is important," Zelenskyy emphasized.
The President added that for Putin, North Korean troops are "meat, not people."
