Two years after the start of the major war, the momentum of Western support for Kiev is losing momentum: newly promised aid fell in the period August 2023 to January 2024 compared to the same period last year, according to the Kiel Institute's most recent report, which was published in February 2024. And this trend could continue as the US Senate is struggling to pass the aid and the European Union (EU) struggled to pass $50 billion in aid on February 1st. 2024, due to the Hungarian blockade. Please note that these two aid packages are not yet taken into account in the Kiel Institute's current assessment, which ends in January 2024.
Data from the German institute shows that the number of donors is declining and concentrated in a core of countries: the United States, Germany, the countries of northern and eastern Europe, which promise both large financial aid and advanced weapons. In total, the countries supporting Kiev have pledged at least 276 billion euros at the military, financial or humanitarian level since February 2022.
In absolute terms, the richest countries were the most generous. With over 75 billion euros in announced aid, including 46.3 billion euros in military aid, the USA is by far the largest donor. European Union countries announced both bilateral aid (64.86 billion euros) and joint aid from European Union funds (93.25 billion euros) for a total of 158.1 billion euros.
If we relate these contributions to the gross domestic product (GDP) of each donor country, the ranking changes. The United States has fallen to 20th place (0.32% of its GDP), well behind Ukraine's neighbors or formerly friendly Soviet republics. Estonia leads the way with 3.55% of GDP, followed by Denmark (2.41%) and Norway (1.72%). Completing the rest of the top 5 are 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 conflict began.
In the ranking of the percentage of GDP, France is in 27th place with 0.07% of its GDP, just behind Greece (0.09%). Aid provided by Paris has steadily declined since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine – France ranked 24th in April 2023 and 13th in the summer of 2022.