Two years into the full-scale war, the dynamics of Western support for kyiv are slowing: newly committed aid is down over the period from August 2023 to January 2024 compared to the same period the previous year, according to the latest report from the Kiel Institute, published in February 2024. And this trend could continue, with the US Senate struggling to pass aid, and the European Union (EU) having had great difficulty in getting a €50 billion aid package adopted on 1is February 2024, due to the Hungarian blockade. Note that these two aid packages are not yet taken into account in the latest assessment made by the Kiel Institute, which ends in January 2024.
The German institute’s data show that the number of donors is shrinking and concentrating around a core of countries: the United States, Germany, and the countries of northern and eastern Europe, which are promising both high financial aid and advanced weaponry. In total, since February 2022, the countries supporting kyiv have pledged at least €276 billion in military, financial or humanitarian aid.
In absolute terms, the richest countries have been the most generous. The United States is by far the largest donor, with more than €75 billion in aid announced, including €46.3 billion in military aid. The European Union countries have announced both bilateral aid (€64.86 billion) and joint aid from European Union funds (€93.25 billion), for a total of €158.1 billion.
When these contributions are compared to the gross domestic product (GDP) of each of the donor countries, the ranking changes. The United States falls to twentieth place (0.32% of its GDP), well behind Ukraine’s neighbors or friendly former Soviet republics. Estonia takes the lead in aid as a percentage of GDP with 3.55%, followed by Denmark (2.41%) and Norway (1.72%). The rest of the top five is completed by Lithuania (1.54%) and Latvia (1.15%). The three Baltic states, which all share borders with Russia or its ally Belarus, have been among the most generous donors since the beginning of the conflict.
In the GDP percentage ranking, France is twenty-seventh, having committed 0.07% of its GDP, just behind Greece (0.09%). The aid provided by Paris has been in constant decline since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – France was twenty-fourth in April 2023, and thirteenth in the summer of 2022.
