Two years after the start of the full-scale war, the dynamics of Western support for kyiv are losing momentum: newly committed aid has decreased during the period from August 2023 to January 2024 compared to the same period of the previous year, according to the latest report by the Kiel Institute, published in February 2024. And this trend could continue, with the US Senate struggling to approve aid and the European Union (EU) having had every difficulty in getting €50 billion in aid approved on 1Ahem February 2024, due to the Hungarian lockdown. Please note that these two aid packages are not yet taken into account in the latest assessment by the Kiel Institute, which ends in January 2024.
Data from the German institute show that the number of donors is declining and is concentrated in a core group of countries: the United States, Germany, and northern and eastern European countries, which promise both high financial aid and advanced weaponry. In total, since February 2022, countries supporting Kiev have committed at least 276 billion euros 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 announced aid, including €46.3 billion in military aid. EU countries announced both bilateral aid (€64.86 billion) and joint aid using EU funds (€93.25 billion), totalling €158.1 billion.
When we relate these contributions to the gross domestic product (GDP) of each donor country, the ranking changes. The United States has fallen to twentieth place (0.32% of its GDP), far behind Ukraine’s neighbours or the friendly former Soviet republics. Estonia leads the way in aid relative to GDP with 3.55%, followed by Denmark (2.41%) and Norway (1.72%). The rest of the top five are completed by Lithuania (1.54%) and Latvia (1.15%). The three Baltic states, which share borders with Russia or its ally Belarus, have been among the most generous donors since the start of the conflict.
In the ranking of GDP percentage, France is in 27th place, 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 the Russian invasion of Ukraine: France was in 24th place in April 2023 and 13th in the summer of 2022.
