Early in the war, the balance was radically different. In the lead-up to the full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia’s army had about 1 million troops, with some 150,000 - 190,000 concentrated along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus.
At the time, Ukraine’s military had some 260,000 in active service, but the country mobilized up to 700,000 men by mid-summer, handing it a manpower advantage over the invading Russian forces, who had by then been expelled from the Kyiv region. Russia was forced to conduct a “partial mobilization” of about 300,000 reservists to stabilize the front line after yielding thousands of square kilometers of territory in eastern Ukraine.
In 2023, Russian recruitment picked up, introducing thousands of prison inmates to the army as well as mercenary groups like the infamous Wagner private military company and offering significant sign-up bonuses to volunteers. Ukraine, on the other hand, was struggling to find new recruits to replace losses. As analysts from the investigative group, the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) observed, this was the year that momentum shifted in Moscow’s favor, as Russia’s recruitment drive neutralized Ukraine’s manpower advantage while Kyiv faced mounting difficulties replenishing its ranks.
In 2025, according to The Military Balance, an annual assessment of military capabilities worldwide, Russia’s numbers of active-duty personnel reached over 1.13 million -- with Syrskiy claiming that some 640,000 of them were on Ukrainian territory, a figure echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. While Ukraine's total troop strength is officially over 1 million, the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) says not more than 300,000 of them are deployed on the front lines.
Russia Recruiting More Than Ukraine According to the OSW, Ukraine needs to recruit some 300,000 soldiers to replenish its brigades, some of which are only at 30 percent strength. Last year, it managed 200,000, a number that “proved insufficient to maintain unit strength at an adequate level” given “the scale of desertions and personnel losses,” the OSW report says. Currently, Ukraine is estimated to recruit 17,000 to 24,000 people per month, or between 204,000 and 288,000 per year.
While it has had to increase its sign-up bonuses, Russian recruitment is estimated to have increased to a rate of about 30,000 per month –- an advantage of roughly 70-150,000 per year.
Sounds philosophical. I agree, Just saying, those numbers don't mean Russia has much of an advantage.
In other more confusing terms: Ukraine has quality in its quantity while Russia has more quantity which gives quality itself, though the quantity consists of bad quality. This makes the general quality not be too different.