Two years after the start of a large-scale war, the dynamics of Western support for Kiev are losing momentum: new aid provided decreased during the period 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 difficulty getting the 50 billion aid measure adopted in 1is February 2024, due to the Hungarian blockade. Please note, these two aid packages have not been taken into account in the latest assessment carried out by the Kiel Institute which ends in January 2024.
Data from German institutes show that the number of donors is declining and is concentrated in core countries: the United States, Germany, northern and eastern European countries, which promise large amounts of financial aid and advanced weaponry. In total, since February 2022, countries supporting Kyiv have committed at least 276 billion euros at the military, financial or humanitarian level.
In absolute terms, the richest countries are the most generous. The United States is by far the largest donor, with more than 75 billion euros in aid announced, including 46.3 billion euros in military aid. EU countries announced bilateral aid (64.86 billion euros) and joint aid from EU funds (93.25 billion euros), for a total of 158.1 billion euros.
When we relate these contributions to each donor country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the ranking changes. The United States slipped to twentieth place (0.32% of GDP), far behind neighboring Ukraine or friendly former Soviet republics. Estonia leads in terms of aid relative to GDP with 3.55%, followed by Denmark (2.41%) and Norway (1.72%). The rest of the top 5 is filled by Lithuania (1.54%) and Latvia (1.15%). The three Baltic states, all of which border Russia or its ally Belarus, have been among the most generous donors since the start of the conflict.
In the GDP percentage ranking, France ranks twenty-seventh, committing with 0.07% of GDP, just behind Greece (0.09%). Aid provided by Paris has continued to decline since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – France ranked twenty-fourth in April 2023, and thirteenth in the summer of 2022.
