EU and Russian military forces

Russia's armed forces consist of 798,527 active personnel and also has a total of 2,572,500 personnel in reserve.

In total it has a defence budget of more than £33bn, making it the fourth largest in the world, behind the US, China, and the UK, according to Business Insider.

The second country to develop nuclear weapons, Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world with a total of 7,000 warheads.

Mr Putin also has access to a total of 351 naval assets, including 63 submarines.

European Union

It is harder to work out an exact total of military personnel available in the EU, who would be likely to be allies in an outbreak of war, due to the sheer number of countries.

However, they certainly have more military personnel than Russia.

Combining France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Greece and Spain, would give Western Europe a combined force of 969,000 full time soldiers.

Meanwhile, the combined spending on defence between the six countries is more than £130bn.

However, only the UK and France have nuclear weapons in the EU, consisting of 515 between them.

The countries have access to a total of 579 naval assets, including 48 submarines.

Relative Strength in Conventional Terms and in Warheads

If Russia and the EU ended up in a conflict, the latter clearly has the larger conventional military force.

Russia also has the largest area of land to defend, commanding the largest land mass in the world, bordering both Finland and North Korea.

In total it has a landmass of more than 17 million square kilometres.

In contrast, Western Europe’s landmass covers fewer than 5 million square kilometres.

However, Russia possesses more than ten times the nuclear weaponry of the EU, if total war broke out between the two it is likely that Mr Putin would be in the ascendency.

Sunday Express Nov 20, 2017

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/interview/conflict-analyst-eu-would-have-second-most-powerful-military-on-earth/