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Deutsche Welle (German edition):
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Ukraine: Western military aid a fraction of other wars

According to the latest analysis by the Institute for the World Economy, the U.S. and Germany spent many times more on Ukraine military aid for other wars.

He will release another $500 million worth of arms shipments in the coming days, U.S. President Joe Biden announced during his brief visit to Kiev on Monday. Specifically, the deliveries will include artillery ammunition, more howitzers and more Javelin shoulder-fired, armor-piercing rocket launchers. The announcement during Biden's highly symbolic visit just before the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine fits the picture of the analysis now updated by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) on the financial value of aid to Ukraine.

"The Americans are setting the pace in supporting Ukraine," says economist Christoph Trebesch, who oversees the IfW's "Ukraine Support Tracker." "The hesitancy of the Europeans in the first year of the war is a remarkable phenomenon, especially since financial resources can be mobilized quickly," Trebesch says. He is referring to the primarily financial payments made by EU states to support Ukraine's budget, especially in light of Ukraine's economic output, which has plummeted by up to 40 percent in the wake of Russia's war of aggression.

The IfW economists calculate from public sources, on the one hand, the direct financial aid and humanitarian aid and, on the other hand, also calculate the cost of weapons supplied to Ukraine. Supplies from military stocks, such as those from the German armed forces, are valued according to market prices and listed by the IfW.

According to this, compared to the last update of the "Ukraine Support Tracker" from December, the U.S. has again overtaken the EU and its member states "with further pledges in the volume of 37 billion euros" in December, the institute writes in its current analysis. U.S. aid delivered and announced now totals 73.1 billion euros, compared with the EU's 54.9 billion. So meanwhile, Ukraine has been delivered or promised aid of 128 billion euros. The U.S. is giving twice as much as the EU as a whole, followed by the UK and Germany.

For the first time, IfW economist Trebesch and his team put Ukraine aid in relation to other spending by the more than 50 supporter states of the "Ukraine Contact Group," led by the United States. "In sum, aid to Ukraine is mostly a fraction in financial terms of what governments spend on cushioning the crisis at home," the analysis says. "Germany alone has announced more than 250 billion euros in subsidies since January 2022 to cushion the rise in energy prices for consumers and businesses."

Germany's bilateral aid to Ukraine now amounts to 6.15 billion euros, it said. In contrast, he said, the German government had spent 5.65 billion euros on the so-called fuel rebate and the discounted public transport ticket alone. With these two measures, the German government had last summer cushioned the price shock for consumers caused by skyrocketing commodity prices after the Russian invasion began on February 24. The researchers did not take into account the deliveries of Western battle tanks such as the Leopard 2 for Ukraine announced for March. This is due to unclear commitments from European countries that have the German-made battle tank. Part of the spending review, however, is the $100 million for training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets that the U.S. House of Representatives waved through last summer.

For the first time, the IfW researchers also compare the costs of aid to Ukraine in the first year of the war with Western spending in other wars. For example, in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), Germany spent "three times more to defend Kuwait" during the 1990/91 Gulf War, when Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait. This money flowed directly to the U.S. at the time. Germany did not directly participate militarily in "Operation Desert Storm," with which the U.S. Army liberated the attacked Gulf state. The U.S. government spent nearly one percent of GDP on this compared to less than 0.4 percent for Ukraine so far. Also, annual U.S. military spending in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2010 was three times higher than Washington's spending to defend Ukraine in the first year since the Russian incursion began. However, unlike Ukraine, the U.S. also sent ground troops to Afghanistan and the Middle East and had to supply them for years.


The Kiel economists can also show that deliveries and commitments to Ukraine initially slumped last June. Namely, from more than 20 billion euros in May to just over five billion euros in June.

The high level was not reached again until November, and thus after the successful liberations by the Ukrainian army in the east and south of the country: First by the EU's pledge to support Ukraine with financial aid in 2023, and then by the extensive U.S. military package, with which the U.S. House of Representatives approved 37 billion euros in military aid last December. It is arguably that aid package from which U.S. President Biden approved 500 million euros in arms shipments for Kiev during his visit to Kiev earlier this week - coupled with the words that U.S. support for Ukraine is "unwavering."
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