FALSE: In Israel, with a population of 8 million citizens, 3.5 million went to fight, and in Ukraine, out of 40 million, not even 2 million people went to the front

Information is spreading on the Internet that 3.5 million citizens went to war in Israel, which has a population of 8 million. In Ukraine, less than 2 million people out of 40 million defend their country, and this makes the contributors give up — allegedly, why go to war, if the majority of Ukrainians supposedly do not care about the fate of the country.

However, this is not true. At a time when the population of Israel was 8 million citizens, the personnel of the Israeli Armed Forces did not exceed 200 thousand people. At the same time, as of January 1, 2023, the population of Ukraine was 28-34 million, and the personnel of the Armed Forces was approximately 700 thousand people.

Israel’s population passed the 8 million mark in early 2013, when the country was at war with Palestine. Then, as during the escalation of hostilities in 2014, the personnel of the Israeli Armed Forces numbered 184,550 people. That is, 2.3% of the entire population was involved in the Israeli army.

Moreover, the number of the Israeli army has never reached the 3 million mark. Even during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Israel was attacked by two countries, Egypt and Syria, the number of troops was 375-415 thousand people (more than 11% of the then population), and by no means 3 million.

At the same time, according to the data of the Institute of Demography and Social Research, as of January 1, 2023, the population of Ukraine was 28-34 million — such variability in data is due to the lack of a population census since 2001 and poorly established records of Ukrainians who cross the border in the West of Ukraine and the border with Moldova. We did not find data on the number of soldiers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of January 1, 2023, however, in July 2022, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov reported that up to 700,000 Armed Forces soldiers were involved in the war. We can assume that by 2023 the number of military personnel will have already crossed the 700,000 mark. Thus, since the beginning of this year, 2-2.5% of Ukrainians were involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war — the result is similar to what we got in the review about Israel.

Previously, we refuted fakes that the majority of the population of Ukraine demands surrender in the war, and summonses are sent via text messages on the phone.