The collective value of Euros, Polish zlotys, British pounds sterling and other European taxpayer money spent on Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion substantially outweighs greenbacks forked over by the United States. And if the cost of helping millions of Ukrainian war refugees is taken into account, the Ukrainian support gap is massive and not in America’s favor, newly released data from a German research group said.
A new study of foreign assistance to Ukraine published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy on Dec. 5 found that since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 the value of allocated American military assistance to date, to Ukraine, is equivalent to $63 billion. Total US assistance to Ukraine including financial aid over that time period ending in October 2024 was $83 billion.
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Other states’ combined allocated military assistance to Ukraine was $58 billion over the same period, about 8% less than the US’s, and total European assistance to Ukraine exclusive of refugee support was $131 billion, more than the US contribution by a bit more than a third, the report said.
European states led by Germany and Poland have, in addition, paid the equivalent of $137 billion to support an estimated 3.5 to 4 million Ukrainian war refugees. Taking those expenditures across Europe into account, total European payments in support of Ukraine are about about three times total US payments supporting Ukraine, that data showed.
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By that metric, the world's most committed state to Ukraine’s defense (after Ukraine itself) probably is Estonia, whose taxpayers at 2.51% individual burden relative to GDP - more than six times more than American taxpayers.
Estonia was closely followed by Denmark (2.3 %), Lithuania (1.94%) and Latvia (1.8%). Kyiv Post researchers estimated that, given Denmark's and the US' nearly equivalent high average individual incomes, it is almost certain the typical Danish taxpayer is forking about five times more out of his monthly paycheck to support Ukraine, in real money terms, than his average American counterpart. However, the Kiel Institute analysis did not make that calculation.
From the Kiel Institute data, we see the overall US national commitment to Ukraine support relative to GDP was slightly less than Spain's (0.42%) and the fifth-worst commitment level in NATO. The only NATO states less committed to supporting Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion than the US were Hungary, Iceland, Portugal, Turkey at 0.37% or less, that data showed.
The Kiel University findings sharply contrasted with the election platform of incoming US President Donald Trump, who campaigned successfully on a ticket, in part, of ending exploitatively high US contributions to Ukrainian defense and NATO. European states were, per Trump campaign speeches, paying next to nothing for the same thing.
End of Lend-Lease assistance from US
On Wednesday prevailing political winds in Washington came down to a clear, anti-Ukraine vote, with the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passing draft legislation to end Lend-Lease assistance to Ukraine, and allocating only a tiny fraction of funding for US arms deliveries to Ukraine.
The Republican-led House on Wednesday passed the $895 billion 2025 national defense funding bill 281-140. The legislation authorized a 4.5 to 14.5 percent pay increase for service personnel and expansion of defense expenditures supporting deterrence of China and increased US worldwide deployment capacity.
However, no funding at all was allocated under the terms of the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, a law allowing the US President to transfer arms and ammunition from existing US military stocks rapidly and with minimum red tape. Lend-Lease legislation was a critical factor of Allied success in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, by providing the British and Soviet militaries with massive deliveries of American weapons and military material.
According to Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, the only direct US defense funding for Ukraine in 2025 will be $300 million in direct military assistance under the terms of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) for fiscal year 2025.
The December congressional demolition of direct arms assistance to Ukraine is the culmination of months of American foot-dragging. From December 2023 to April 2024 the US cut off funding for all military support to Ukraine, because of Congressional disagreements, primarily over border reform.
Congress, in April 2024, approved slightly more than $60 billion in various forms of military assistance to Ukraine for that year, but, by December, only about half of what Congress had approved had been allocated by December, according to Pentagon statements.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late October said American foot-dragging on military support to Ukraine had, in reality, delivered only about one-tenth of the assistance promised.
The US and other G7 states in November and December announced that funding for Western weaponry for Ukraine in 2025 and in the future should come largely from either the interest or principle of some $300 billion in Russian state funds held in Western financial institutions. The US Department of the Treasury on Wednesday announced that, for 2025, some $20 billion of Russian assets frozen in America would fund Ukrainian purchases of American weaponry and military services.
A hardware assessment
Ukraine’s military after three years of conventional war against the Russian army has a generally positive view of American arms but considers some US weapons overly complicated, or more costly than comparable arms produced by other countries or Ukraine itself.
The most irreplaceable US weapons from the Ukrainian perspective are components of the Patriot air defense system which, to date, are the only means Ukrainian forces have of defending Ukrainian homes and businesses from Russian ballistic missile attacks.
Also widely praised are American precision-guided rockets and missiles, which are seen as highly effective but orders of magnitude more costly than Ukrainian-manufactured long-range drones able to hit the same targets. US restrictions placed on Ukrainian use of American weapons, banning using them against portions of Russia, are another common Ukrainian criticism of these American strike systems.
Ukrainian frontline soldiers have found the American M1A1 Abrams tank effective on the battlefield but complicated and expensive to maintain, and not really better tactically than German Leopard 2 or British Challenger 2 tanks. Ukrainian-developed tanks like the T-64BV are considered serviceable but with less crew comforts and poorer gunnery systems. The Ukrainian tank costs about a third of the American vehicle.
America’s Bradley infantry fighting vehicle is widely accounted one of the best weapons for assault in the Ukrainian army’s inventory for its rugged armor and construction keeping soldiers alive even after heavy damage to the vehicle. However, Ukrainian assault infantrymen usually say the Swedish CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles are equally rugged, and that the BAE Systems product has a more powerful gun and better cross-country maneuverability.
This article was revised Dec. 16, 2024.
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