Taro Nishikawa

Should the US permanently end its financial and military support for Ukraine, European states could fill the gap in many areas or even overcompensate. A new analysis by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows that this would be possible with relatively little additional effort, particularly in the financial sector. Replacing American weapons and ammunition assistance is more difficult, but here, too, Europe could deliver in important areas. There is currently no substitute for US military intelligence.

Over the past 3 years of war, donor countries have provided a low but continuous flow of support to Ukraine, with a value of about EUR 80 billion per year. European donors have been the main source of aid to Ukraine since 2022, especially when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid. At the same time, we observe a shift towards weapon procurement. In the initial phase of the war, military aid to Ukraine mostly came from existing arsenals of donor countries, but these have emptied over time. Today, the large majority military aid is newly produced weaponry from Western defense industries—with a small but growing role of multilateral weapon procurement initiatives. These are the findings of the latest update of the Ukraine Support Tracker, which tracks aid up to December 2024.