Massive Military Imbalance Between Russia and Ukraine

As tensions grow amid Russian military activity on the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine has mobilised its armed forces. However, any confrontation with Russia would be enormously one sided, given the massive gulf in size between both militaries.

Russia has at least 845,000 active duty military personnel in comparison to Ukraine’s 123,000. With a defence budget of some $78 billion, the Russian army can rely on some 15,000 tanks and over 27,000 other armoured vehicles.

This is in stark contrast to the Ukrainian army which has an estimated 4,100 tanks alongside 6,400 other armoured fighting vehicles. Ukraine’s air force would also be vastly outnumbered in any conflict – just 400 Soviet-era warplanes compare unfavourably to Russia’s estimated 3,000.