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International Aid to Ukraine (Military and Non-Military)
(Edited lecture transcript)

Atsuko Higashino

Introduction

Concerning international aid to Ukraine, military and non-military, this paper will compare US and European military aid to Ukraine, using the data provided by the Ukraine Support Tracker database1 of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Looking at the overall trends, the delay in international military aid in 2023 had a significant impact on the war situation in eastern Ukraine in 2024. This delay is gradually being rectified, and the amount of international military aid in 2024 is slowly increasing.

Although Germany is blamed for not providing sufficient assistance to Ukraine, the country is actually by far the largest donor of military aid in Europe. Regardless, there is a debate in Germany over whether or not to continue providing military aid to Ukraine. We need to monitor how the issue of Germany's military aid will develop in the future.

From now on, urgent debates will take place among donor countries over the way Ukraine should use weapons supplied by the West or whether Ukraine should be allowed to use those weapons for long-range attacks against military targets in Russia―rather than over the "monetary amount" of military aid. At present, Ukraine does not receive sufficient military aid to win the ongoing war, both in terms of quality and quantity. In addition to the insufficiency of weapons, how Ukraine should use those weapons will matter from now.

Aid from the US, UK, Europe (NATO and the EU), and Japan

The United States is the largest donor of military aid to Ukraine, committing $54.4 billion, of which $53.7 billion has already been disbursed. In April 2024, the United States committed an additional $60.8 billion, but due to the delay of US aid, Ukrainian forces are facing serious difficulties in the eastern battle fronts.

The UK has thus far committed £12.5 billion of aid, with £7.6 billion already outlaid. The British Conservative government has supplied Ukraine with long-range and other crucial weapons before other countries, taking the lead in encouraging military aid to Ukraine. Ukraine values ​​the UK's assistance, not only for its proactive attitude but also for its understanding of Ukraine's use of UK-provided weapons to strike military targets in Russia.

57 NATO/EU member states and the EU have joined the "Ukraine Defense Contact Group," coordinating weapons supply for Ukraine. The US-led forum has played a vital role in meeting regularly and working on a comprehensive assistance package to Ukraine. The "Ukraine Defense Contact Group" could be taken over by NATO in years to come.

At a NATO summit in July 2024, the member states decided to secure minimum baseline funds worth €40 billion over the next few years―a decision based on considerations not to destabilize or make untransparent assistance to Ukraine, with the advent of another Trump administration in mind. Yet, there is no denying the possibility that the Trump administration could ignore the commitment.

Fundamentally, the EU is not an organization that provides large-scale military aid. In the wake of the Ukraine war, however, it committed €11.1 billion by using the European Peace Facility (EPF), an EU institution, to shoulder the costs of member states' military aid to Ukraine. However, military assistance to Ukraine through this facility was often stagnant throughout 2023. For example, although the EU decided in March 2023 to provide 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine using the EPF, the shells actually supplied appear to be less than 500,000.

Lastly, let me touch on Japan's assistance to Ukraine. According to the Accord on Support for Ukraine and Cooperation between the Government of Japan and Ukraine concluded in June 2024, the Japanese government committed and disbursed $12.1 billion between February 2022 and June 2024. Meanwhile, according to the Ukraine Support Tracker website updated on June 30, 2024, the latest figure for Japanese assistance is €9.11 billion―less than $12.1 billion.

US and European Aid (Military and Non-military) for Comparison

Figure 1 is a bar graph comparing US and European aid (military and non-military) to Ukraine every three months. For a while after the Ukraine war began, US aid exceeded that of Europe; yet, from 2023, Europe (including non-EU countries) overtook the United States, and from the latter half of that year until April 2024, Europe temporarily undertook aid alone because US aid almost stopped.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

As shown in Figure 2, Europe's cumulative total of aid (military and non-military) until today, including both "total allocated aid" and "aid to be allocated," far exceeds that of the United States.

However, as far as military aid to Ukraine is concerned, the United States was the largest donor from January 2022 through June 2024 (Fig. 3). Incidentally, non-military aid consists of humanitarian and financial support.

Looking at European aid to Ukraine by country, Germany is the largest donor, followed by the UK, France, and non-European Japan and Canada. These data illustrate the importance of German assistance, especially military aid. Nevertheless, there is a prevailing international impression that Germany hesitates to support Ukraine. This is likely because the German government took a long time to decide on providing aid and then proceeded cautiously with the implementation process.

Among other European countries, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Poland, Finland, and Norway were major financial contributors, indicating that these medium and small European countries are making vital contributions to military aid to Ukraine.

Fig. 3

Percentage of Aid (Military and Non-military) in Donor Country GDP

Figure 4 displays the percentage of military and non-military aid in each donor country's GDP. Viewed from this angle, the United States, Canada, and Japan rank lower than small European countries, who share the awareness that they must face the current war as their own and hold Russia back regardless of US involvement. Estonia was in first place for a while, but the latest data shows that Denmark is at the top with an aid/GDP ratio of 1.83%. Estonia is in second place with 1.66%, followed by Lithuania (1.43%), Latvia (1.13%), Finland (0.88%), Sweden (0.76%), Poland (0.68%), and other small European countries. The UK ranks 15th, Canada 21st, and the United States 23rd; Japan comes at 31st place with an aid/GDP ratio of 0.02%―the largest donor in East Asia.

Fig. 4

Ranking by Donated Weapons

Regarding the provision of tanks to Ukraine, Central and Eastern European countries that possessed old-fashioned Soviet tanks were quick to provide those tanks to Ukraine from an early stage after the start of the Russian aggression. Poland was the fastest and the most outstanding in quantity (324 tanks), outdistancing the second-place Netherlands (104 tanks). Since Poland has provided Ukraine with tanks that might be necessary for its own national defense, there is little room for the country to supply additional weapons to Ukraine. The number of tanks the Czech Republic supplied follows that of the Netherlands (90 tanks). In addition, the country, alongside Slovakia, is repairing and returning to actual service Ukrainian tanks deployed and damaged on the battlefields―a unique mode of support hard to quantify, which the Ukrainian side highly appreciates.

Regarding the ranking of donors of infantry fighting vehicles, the United States ranks first (352 cars), followed by the Netherlands (269), Germany (140), the Czech Republic (131), and Denmark (80). As for air defense systems, Germany (26) comes first, followed by the Czech Republic (16), the United States (16), Spain (7), and Slovakia (3).

Conclusion

Two points deserve mentioning that will likely become controversial regarding the future military aid from the United States and particularly from European countries. The first is a move to use part of the profits derived from Russia's frozen assets for military assistance to Ukraine. European countries are not merely running short of weapons to supply to Ukraine but also facing difficulties acquiring funds to procure them. For this reason, in 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion began, the European Commission formulated a plan to utilize Russia's frozen funds to support Ukraine; after many twists and turns, the plan was agreed upon in mid-2024. As a result, funding that mainly consists of interest derived from the Russian frozen funds will be withdrawn every six months and used for military aid to Ukraine.

Secondly, Ukraine request that the United States and European nations remove all restrictions on the use of weapons (especially long-range weapons) in attacking military targets in Russia. However, obtaining consent from the United States, in particular, does not appear to be easy. After Ukraine's Kursk operation began, the United States was anticipated to ease restrictions on the use of weapons, but actually, the United States maintains a cautious position. The United States and the UK are widely apart over this issue. The UK believes that it is not appropriate to impose restrictions on the way Ukraine uses donated weapons, while the United States remains cautious about the escalation of the Russian response.

Russia did not respond to the Kursk operation by Ukraine with immediate escalation measures, including the use of nuclear weapons, which has led to arguments in the United States and Europe that "there is no danger of escalation in the first place" or that "Russia has already lost its ability to escalate warfare." However, there are many unknowns about Russia's future response, and it would be dangerous at this stage to accept the optimism that "the escalation of warfare will not occur in the future." It is necessary to continue to carefully monitor Russia's response.

The feature of the current issue of Security Studies is "What will end the Ukraine war?" From the perspective of the theme of this lecture, "International Aid to Ukraine (Military and Non-Military)," military aid from the United States and European nations until mid-2024, in particular, was distinguished with delayed decision-making and the failure to implement the decisions as planned. Furthermore, restrictions the West imposed on Ukraine's use of long-range weapons resulted in frustration on the Ukrainian side, grateful as it is for support from the West. This is why there are frequent complaints in Ukraine that "the United States and European nations do not intend Ukraine to ‘win' over Russia." Consequently, in charting the path to terminating the current war, it is essential to carefully observe, from multiple perspectives, the war situation, the momentum of international support, the lifting by the West of restrictions on the use of long-range weapons, and international endorsement for the "Peace Formula" that represents Ukraine's pursuit of peace and the necessary conditions to achieve it.

(Professor, Tsukuba University)

Edited by the SSDP Secretariat from the transcript of the same titled lecture (August 27, 2024).

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