Military aid to Ukraine: Kiel University counts and names leaders
7 March 2025 08:49
During the full-scale war, Estonia and Denmark provided the most assistance to Ukraine relative to the country’s GDP. This is reported by the publication “How Much” with reference to the data of the “Ukraine Support Tracker” project from the Institute of World Economics at Kiel University (Germany), "Komersant Ukrainian" informs.
In total, Ukraine received $287.47 billion in aid from February 24, 2022, to December 31, 2024. Of the total amount, about $139.61 billion (49%) is military aid, $127.46 billion (44%) is financial support, and €20.40 billion (7%) is humanitarian aid.
And although 77% of all aid by value is provided by 5 countries and organizations, each country’s aid relative to their GDP is about half a percent or less:
The United States: $122.81 billion in aid or 0.53% of GDP
United Kingdom: $15.93 billion in aid or 0.51% of GDP
Germany: $18.57 billion in aid or 0.44% of GDP
European Commission: $52.66 billion in aid or 0.31% of GDP
Japan: $11.32 billion in aid or 0.23% of GDP
At the same time, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries provided the largest amount of aid in relation to GDP:
Estonia: $0.82 billion in aid or 2.20% of GDP
Denmark: $8.66 billion in aid or 2.17% of GDP
Lithuania: $1.20 billion in aid or 1.80% of GDP
Latvia: $0.61 billion in aid or 1.53% of GDP
Finland: $2.92 billion in aid or 0.98% of GDP
Sweden: $5.82 billion in aid or 0.91% of GDP
And after Sweden comes Poland with $5.42 billion in aid and a share of 0.80% of the country’s GDP.
How the United States helped Ukraine
According to the Ukraine Support Tracker project by the Keele University Institute of World Economics, as of February 14, 2025, almost three years into the full-scale war, the United States has allocated $122.81 billion to help Ukraine.
Of the total amount, $50.13 billion is financial aid, $69.00 billion is military aid, and $3.68 billion is humanitarian aid.
The Ukraine Support Tracker project calculates the amounts based on official government sources, data from international organizations, parliamentary reports, etc.
As for military assistance, these figures almost coincide with the data from the US Bureau of Political-Military Affairs: from the beginning of the full-scale invasion to January 20, 2025, military support to Ukraine amounted to $65.9 billion.
At the same time, according to a study by the Economists for Ukraine think tank, the real aid to Ukraine from the United States amounted to only $51 billion, of which $18.3 billion was military aid and $32.6 billion was financial aid.
Why official data and real aid figures differ
The discrepancy is caused by several main factors:
– Overestimation of old US arms stockpiles, the value of which is based on the US Department of Defense’s reporting, not on the actual value of weapons on the market or on the battlefield. The vast majority of the transferred equipment is no longer in use by the U.S. military and thus has zero effective value to the United States.
– Some sources of funding are distributed through other donors, which involves additional administrative and related costs. Thus, Ukraine receives only a portion of the funds directly.
– Much of the military aid is aimed at deploying military capabilities directly to the United States, and Ukraine receives weapons from them at market value and with numerous restrictions.
– A significant portion of military aid (approximately 25%) is received in the form of loans rather than grants. Therefore, Ukraine is already obliged to repay them and this is not direct aid.
