Ukraine has will, but Russia has might: How their military forces match up

By any estimation, the battle for Ukraine was never going to be a fair fight.

The invading Russian Federation commands the world's second-most powerful military, behind only the United States, having spent an estimated $61.7 billion US on defence in 2020, according to figures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 

Ukraine spent a tenth of that, just $5.9 billion US.

And that disparity shows in almost every possible comparison.

The lopsided list goes on and on.

"The Russian army is powerful, there's no doubt about it, far more powerful than that of Ukraine," said retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, former Chief of Land Staff for the Canadian Armed Forces.

"The Russians enjoy a vast technological advantage, in terms of quality, in terms of training time — which gives you experience on the various machines of war — and in terms of numbers." 

Russian advantages that will be all but insurmountable for Ukrainian defenders — at least in the initial stage of the war, said Leslie. But pacifying the country's 44 million people may end up being a far more daunting task for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Mr. Putin is going to have to go into the cities and he's going to have to occupy Ukraine for years against a bitter, vengeful population who have tasted freedom," Leslie predicts. "And they are not going to forget, and they're not going to allow the Russians to have either an easy occupation, or to stay very long." 

Ukraine's leaders seem to have already moved on to that next fight. Russia's formal military reserve force is estimated to be as high as two million troops. But the Ukrainians are now busy trying to augment their core of 900,000 call-ups, having now ordered all men between 18 and 60 to remain in the country, and arming anyone who is willing to pick up a gun. 

On Friday, former President Petro Poroshenko was on the streets of Kyiv, brandishing a sawed-off AK-47, and boasting of the country's strength in numbers.

"This is the long line of the people who want to enlist in the battalion, but we don't have enough arms ... they are normal, ordinary people [who] sometimes [have] never been in the army, staying in line now to join us," Poroshenko told CNN. 

"Putin never will catch Ukraine despite how many soldiers he has, how many missiles he has, how many nuclear weapons he has. We Ukrainian are free people with a great European future."

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