Countries That Have Committed the Most Aid to Ukraine
While the U.S. has committed the most aid in total dollars, Ukraine’s neighbors are contributing the most on a per GDP basis.
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As the two-year anniversary of Russia’sinvasion of Ukraine approaches, additional aid for the latter country has stalled in the U.S. Congress after hardline Republicans expressed their opposition to further financial support for Ukraine’s war effort.
President Joe Biden warned that the refusal to pass an aid package would be “playing into (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s hands” and military analysts predicted that a halt to U.S. aid would hurt Ukraine’s prospects for winning the war.
But the U.S. is just one among many countries that have supported Ukraine since the start of the conflict in Eastern Europe.
Global aid to Ukraine has reached a staggering 253 billion euros committed as of Jan. 15, or about $278 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. The group is trying to keep up with all of the commitments in its Ukraine Support Tracker, which keeps tabs on government-to-government transfers of military, financial and humanitarian aid into Ukraine. The Germany-based institute also tracks allocations, which it defines as aid earmarked and/or specified for delivery in the near term.
The majority of committed support by country has come from the United States, whose total aid commitment is valued at about $75 billion. The U.S. is followed by Germany and the United Kingdom for highest commitments overall. The European Union as a whole has committed approximately $93 billion in aid to Ukraine.
The types of aid committed vary by country. The U.S. is flexing its military might, committing weapons and equipment valued at $46 billion – the most among countries and more than twice as much as Germany, which has promised the next-highest amount of military aid.
Germany leads with the highest total amount of humanitarian aid among countries, followed by the U.S. and Switzerland.
While U.S. aid commitments and deliveries to Ukraine have essentially come to a halt given the political gridlock in Washington, European aid continues to grow, according to the institute.
But whether that growth will be enough to support a winning war effort remains far from unclear.
“Europe will have to at least double its current military support efforts in case there is no further support from the United States,” Christoph Trebesch, head of the Ukraine Support Tracker and the research director at the Kiel Institute, said in a statement. “This is a challenge, but ultimately a question of political will.”
The institute estimates the individual commitments of EU members by using each country's contributions to the overall EU budget and shares in the European Investment Bank. Much of that European aid is financial rather than military.
The Ukraine Support Tracker team noted in a news release that there is a “large gap between commitments and allocations” in Europe. As of Jan. 15, the EU and its member states have committed a total of about $155 billion in aid, but allocated just $83 billion of that total for specific purposes, according to the institute.
While big, wealthy countries can afford to provide more in absolute terms, smaller countries are making significant offerings of their own. In fact, relative to each country’s gross domestic product, the countries near Ukraine are providing the most support.
Denmark and Estonia have each committed aid totaling more than 2% of their gross domestic product, with Estonia being the highest, at 3.55%, according to the tracker. Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Poland also stand out among the highest donors by share of GDP. Malta, on the other hand, has committed aid totaling only 0.01% of its GDP, the lowest for European countries in the data.
The U.S. has committed 0.32% of its GDP toward Ukraine aid, which falls below the percentages committed by the U.K. (0.55%) and Germany (0.57%).
Outside of the U.S. and Europe, other significant contributors include Japan, Canada and South Korea. The tracker doesn’t include private donations, or help from international organizations like the Red Cross, due to a “lack of comparable and reliable data,” according to the institute.
