Ukraine Support Tracker: US significantly expands support, Europe lags behind

11.10.2022

The US has again significantly expanded its pledges of support for Ukraine in recent weeks. European countries, on the other hand, have made only a few new pledges. In addition, the aid announced by EU countries has been slow to reach Ukraine. These are the results of the latest update of the Ukraine Support Tracker. The analysis on heavy weapons has been considerably expanded in this release.

In the period now additionally covered by the Ukraine Support Tracker (August 4 to October 3), the US made new pledges of just under 12 billion euros, bringing the total to just over 52 billion euros in military, financial, and humanitarian aid. EU countries and institutions expanded their commitments by only about 1.4 billion euros over the same period, and now collectively reach just over 29 billion euros. ”The US is now committing nearly twice as much as all EU countries and institutions combined. This is a meagre showing for the bigger European countries, especially since many of their pledges are arriving in Ukraine with long delays. The low volume of new commitments in the summer now appears to be continuing systematically,” says Christoph Trebesch, head of the team compiling the Ukraine Support Tracker and research center director at Kiel Institute. ”The US government is a much more reliable partner for Ukraine than the gib EU countries. They still have not disbursed the EU financial aid package promised back in April.”

For the first time, the Ukraine Support Tracker has evaluated what proportion of their stocks of tanks, howitzers, and rocket launchers various countries have given to Ukraine. According to the report, the deliveries account for about 2 percent of the total stocks of tanks in NATO and EU countries, 4 percent of the howitzers, and 5 percent of Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS). Among the major EU countries, Germany and France have now also supplied significant shares of their stocks to Ukraine. Germany has provided Ukraine with 12 percent each of its howitzers and MRLS, and France has provided 15 percent of its MRLS.

At the same time, the total value of weapon commitments by Germany has not been expanded since several months. They remain unchanged at 1.2 billion euros. Similarly, there have been only limited new pledges from France, Great Britain, Spain, or Italy in the last two months.

About the Ukraine Support Tracker

The Ukraine Support Tracker lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid pledged to Ukraine since January 24, 2022 (currently through October 3, 2022). It covers 40 countries, specifically the EU member states, other members of the G7, as well as Australia, South Korea, Turkey, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and India. Also, EU institutions are included as a separate donor. The tracker lists government-to-government commitments; private donations or those from international organizations such as the IMF are not included in the main database. Flows going into other countries like, for example, Moldova, are not included.

Finland supports Ukraine and its neighbouring countries affected by the war in many ways.

Finland has granted EUR 21 million in additional support to Ukraine following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Out of this sum, EUR 9.2 million is humanitarian assistance which will be delivered through the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

EUR 11.8 million will be channelled to development cooperation via the World Bank’s FREE Ukraine support package, to the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine, which is coordinated by the United Kingdom, and to the Council of Europe’s Action Plan for Ukraine, and the OSCE’s project activities.

In addition, EUR 70 million will be allocated to humanitarian aid and development cooperation to support Ukraine’s acute humanitarian situation, critical functions of the country’s society and, later on, reconstruction.

Finland will also provide material assistance to Ukraine based on its needs. Material assistance has been sent through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (e.g. tents, medical supplies, fire engines and ambulances). Based on Ukraine’s requests, Finland is preparing to provide further material assistance. Material support is coordinated by the Ministry of the Interior. (layout.types.url.description)

Finland has also provided protective military equipment and arms assistance to Ukraine. More information on defence materiel assistance is available on the Ministry of Defence website.