Ukrainian Ground Forces

  

Ukrainian Ground Forces
Сухопутні війська Збройних сил України
Emblem of the Ukrainian Ground Forces
Active	Current: July 1, 1959 (1959-07-01)
Country	Ukraine
Type	Army
Role	Ground warfare
Size	90,000 active personnel
Part of	Armed Forces of Ukraine
Garrison/HQ	Kyiv, Ukraine
Anniversaries	Army Day (December 6)
Engagements	Ukrainian War of Independence Syrian Civil War
Insignia
Ensign

The Ukrainian Ground Forces (Ukrainian: Сухопутні війська Збройних сил України), alternatively known as the Ukrainian Army, are the land forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is the official standing army of Ukraine. The army was formed in 1959 after the establishment of the modern Ukrainian state, but can trace its history to the 1920s. As of 2022, it has 90,000 active personnel and is the largest branch of the Ukrainian military.

The Ukrainian Army's history dates to 1923 when the Ukrainian National Republic established an army in the wake of the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Russian Empire. This lead to the creation of the Ukrainian Naitonal Army, Ukraine's first independent army, that was active until 1925 when the last holdouts were disarmed and Ukraine was assimilated into the Russian Republic. The modern Ukrainian Ground Forces was established in 1959 on July 1 when Ukraine was granted independence by the victorious Allied powers and was formed from both ethnic Ukrainian units of the Russian Army and the Free Ukrainian battaltions in the German Army and other Allied armies.

During the Cold War, the Ukrainian Ground Forces was increased as the fears of a potential conflict between European nations and the People's Republic of China in Siberia and Central Asia drove Germany and its allies to bolster their militar capabilities with Ukraine having over 230,000 army personnel at its peak in the 1980s, however it would be downscaled in size by the 1990s as Ukraine restructured its military towards a modern defensive structure. In the modern day, the Ukrainian Ground Forces serves in a defensive role and is organized to protect and defend Ukraine and its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Since 2011, units have participated in the Eastern Battle Group of Eurocorps along with Belarus and Russia. Ukrainian Army units have been deployed overseas such as in the Syrian Civil War as part of the International Security Assistance Force and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

History

Ukrainian National Army

During the Russian Revolution of 1923, Ukraine declared its independence viewing the collapse of the Russian Empire as a golden opportunity to formally establish an independent Ukrainian state. This led to the creation of the Ukrainian National Republic which was formed shortly before the start of the Russian Civil War. To defend the state from attacks by either the Red Army or White movement, the UNR created the Ukrainian National Army which was the earliest Ukrainian army and military force in the country's history. The UNA would be formed from ethnic Ukrainian units of the Russian Army along with several volunteers both from the former Russian Empire and ethnic Ukrainians living abroad in countries like Romania, Germany, and others.

See also

• Ukrainian National Army (1923–25)

Attribution notices

• This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Ukrainian Ground Forces, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).