Ukraine aims to amass ‘million-strong army’ to recapture south from Russia
Ukraine plans a “million-strong army” equipped with Nato weapons to retake the south of the country from occupying Russians, the defence minister says.
Retaking the areas around the Black Sea coast was vital to the country’s economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.
However, the comments are more of a rallying cry than a concrete plan, says the BBC’s Joe Inwood in Kyiv.
The defence minister’s remarks come as Russia makes progress in taking territory in the eastern Donbas region.
An attack on a block of flats on Sunday killed at least 22 people – with more than 20 feared buried under the rubble.
Rescuers are still looking for survivors at the site of the five-storey building in Chasiv Yar, near the city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region which has been the focus of a Russian push.
He said weapons deliveries needed to be sped up.
“We need more, quickly, to save the lives of our soldiers. Each day we’re waiting for howitzers, we can lose a hundred soldiers,” he said.
“We have approximately 700,000 in the armed forces and when you add the national guard, police, border guard, we are around a million-strong,” the defence minister said.
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSHowever, Dr Jack Watling, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, cautioned against the figure.
“It’s not a million-strong force that will be conducting a counter-attack,” Mr Watling told the BBC.
The comments come as three people were killed and 28 wounded after residential areas in the eastern city of Kharkiv were struck by Russian shells, the regional governor said. (BBC)
