Oleksii Danilov: Strength of Russian Troops on Ukraine’s Border Not Enough for Full-Scale Invasion

For a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation needs three to five times more troops than are currently amassed near Ukraine’s border.

“There are some movements of troops, but they are not critical for us. A full-scale invasion requires at least three, four, five times as many troops as there are now. But is there a threat? Of course, there is a constant threat to us, we have been living with this threat for seven years, and there is nothing new to us that Russian troops are in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Oleksii Danilov told the Nastoyashchee Vremya TV channel in an interview.

The main goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin is to split Ukraine into several parts, he added.

According to the NSDC Secretary, if Russia does not achieve this through internal destabilisation, “weapons could be used as another option, but we are ready for this.”

As Danilov noted, the Armed Forces of Ukraine currently numbers 261,000 service members, and the total strength of the security and defence sector is about one million people. In addition, there is a civil society, millions of people, who will also stand up for the state.

“Do we need help now? Yes, we do. And we appeal to our partner countries, requesting this help. Do we get this help? Yes, we do. Is it enough? We would like it to be much larger. But if there is no such help, we will have enough understanding of how to repel the aggressor,” the official stressed.

The Russian Federation has been amassing troops near Ukrainian borders since the end of October. Western media, citing intelligence sources, reported that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was possible in early 2022. Up to 175,000 Russian service members would be involved in this operation.

The situation on the Ukraine–Russia border is of concern to world leaders. In particular, the presidents of many countries, the NATO leadership, and the foreign ministers of the G7 countries warned Russia about the massive consequences and the high price that Russia would have to pay in the event of new military aggression against Ukraine.

Bohdan Marusyak