The help to Ukraine – most of which comes from the US, EU and Britain – has started to weaken in recent months due to the deadlock in the US Congress which has not been able to agree on the release of a new support package.
More than 107 billion euros
Until January 15, the EU and its countries NATO have already pledged €107.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine, according to figures released today by the German think tank Kiel, which tracks the weapons Kiev’s allies have pledged to provide after the start war’s.
The EU and its member states have promised Ukraine 49.7 billion euros, the US 42.2 billion. But the money promised by the EU is to be released gradually over years, while that of the US has already been given to Kiev or have been used for weapons and military equipment.
The 27 member countries have delivered about 35.2 billion euros in military aid, less than the US.
By country, the US is followed by Germany (17.7 billion, of which 9.4 billion has already been granted), Britain (9.1 billion, of which 4.8 billion has already been granted) and Denmark (8, 4 billion of which 4.5 have already been given).
Cut off American aid
But the US, a key provider of military aid to Ukraine, has stopped giving it aid. The government of the American president Joe Biden has been trying for months in vain to get Congress to pass a new package, but the Republicans are blocking it.
A Biden adviser recently pointed out that “I increasingly expect that the Ukrainian military will put limits on the use of ammunition, or even face shortages on the front” due to “US inaction.”
“It is highly uncertain whether the US will send additional military aid in 2024,” the Kiel Institute assessed. And experts fear a possible return to the US presidency of Republican Donald Trump, which could mean an end to US aid to Kiev.
“Europe will need to at least double its current military aid with the prospect of no additional aid from the US,” warned Christoph Trebes, head of the Kiel institute’s group responsible for monitoring aid to Ukraine.
“It’s a challenge, but ultimately it’s a matter of political will,” he added. “EU countries are among the richest in the world and have so far spent just 1% of their 2021 GDP to support Ukraine,” he noted.
Disputes in Europe as well
Although European leaders agreed earlier this month to offer new financial aid of 50 billion euros to Ukraine over the next four years (33 billion in loans and 17 billion in grants), this package was adopted with difficulty due to the reservations of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In Slovakia, the rise to power of a new governing majority was accompanied by tensions: the new Prime Minister Robert Fico blocked in early November, as he had stated in his election campaign, a large arms delivery to Ukraine planned by the previous government.
Poland has been among Ukraine’s biggest supporters since the start of the war, but bilateral relations have been affected by backlash from Polish farmers who complain of unfair competition from their Ukrainian counterparts.
The country’s new prime minister, the pro-European Donald Tusk, however, has been emphasizing his support for Ukraine since December when he was elected.
From light weapons to tanks
At the beginning of the war, in the face of the rapid advance of Russian troops, Kiev received tens of thousands of light weapons as an emergency. Then from April 2022 onwards, when the Russian military concentrated its efforts in Donbass and southern Ukraine, it received weapons capable of striking behind enemy positions (helicopters, drones, multiple rocket launchers).
Ukraine’s allies later offered it air defense systems, including the US Patriot system, to defend against Russian strikes against its infrastructure and cities.
At the beginning of 2023 the Kyiv received modern tanks. According to the Kiel institute, Ukraine’s allies have pledged to provide it with 265 tanks, of which at least 150 had been given to it by the end of October. Among them were American Abrams, British Challenger and mainly German Leopard.
When Kiev launched a difficult counterattack in June, it received long-range missiles from its allies: Storm Shadow/Scalp (with a range of 250 km) from France and Britain, but also American ATACMS (with a range of 165 km).
Soon F-16
Following Washington’s green light, the Netherlands and Denmark pledged in August to provide 61 US F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Norway followed.
The training of Ukrainian pilots has been undertaken by a coalition of 11 countries and has already begun at a training center inaugurated in mid-November in Romania, where the first F-16s arrived from the Netherlands.
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