Ukraine will incentivize its 800,000-strong army with high salaries – Zelenskyy
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the state will incentivize Ukrainian servicemen with high salaries if a ceasefire is reached.
The head of state said this at a press conference with Donald Tusk in Kyiv, Censor.NET reports.
Motivation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine
"We will preserve our army — 800,000 — which we have been talking about, and after the end of the war or after a ceasefire, transition it from a mobilized force to a contract army... Those who want to," the President of Ukraine stressed.
According to him, servicemen will need to be incentivized with high wages.
"I tasked the new defense minister (Mykhailo Fedorov, ed.) and told him what the salary level should be for the front line, where people risk their lives. Even during a ceasefire, salaries on the front line must be several times higher. This is what we are talking about; we will calculate all of this and see how capable we are of doing it. Ukraine needs financial support, first and foremost from Europeans, because the Ukrainian army is part of Europe’s security," Zelenskyy explained.
Limits on the size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
- As a reminder, in December 2025, Zelenskyy said that a peace agreement provides limits on the number of troops in Ukraine. According to him, the document provides for maintaining the current real strength of the Ukrainian army — about 800,000 servicemen.
- In January 2025, the head of state said the Armed Forces of Ukraine numbered 880,000 people, while the Russian contingent in Ukraine at the time was about 600,000.
- It should be noted that back in 2022, Russia demanded that the size of the Ukrainian army be significantly reduced. In particular, Russia demanded that the Armed Forces of Ukraine be limited to 85,000 servicemen, 342 tanks, 519 artillery systems, and that the range of Ukrainian missiles be limited to 40 km.
