Expert says how much time Ukrainian army needs for rearmament

Director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies Valentyn Badrak said this at a press conference on Monday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Ukraine needs five to seven years for rearmament if $500-700 million is spent on new arms purchases. So we see that this year we have approached only the starting point of rearmament. I cannot expect that we will have active rearmament. I think it will take five years," he said.

Badrak noted that the budget for arms purchases is small. UAH 17.1 billion (about $640 million at the time) was allocated for procurement in 2017. Today, the same amount equals about $600 million, which is less than in 2017.

He recalled that the size of the defense budget in Ukraine is about $2.7 billion, compared to EUR 10 billion in Poland. Therefore, Poland is able to buy the American Patriot air defense systems, high-precision missile systems for airplanes, that is, air-to-air missiles - "this is what we cannot buy today."

op