Posted at April 21, 2022, 17:57Updated on April 21, 2022 at 6:18 PM
Who responded most effectively to? Ukraine calls for help since the first Russian tanks invaded its territory? A database put online this week by a German think tank makes it possible to make visible the strong differences between the countries that have expressed their support for Kiev.
The team from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy collected all public data on aid from 31 countries – EU Member States and other G7 members – as well as donations from European institutions between the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , February 24 and the end of March. “Since the beginning of the war, the public debate has focused mainly on the measures to effectively harm the Russian executive while support for Ukraine has received less attention, partly due to the lack of data,” explains Christoph Trebesch, research director at the think tank and lead author of the database.
First note: even if Europe has multiplied its gestures to show its support for Kiev, it is the United States that has spent by far the most money on it. They alone spent 7.6 billion euros. Just over half in military aid (supply of arms, military rations and various credits to the army), the rest in humanitarian aid. In total, more than three quarters of the bilateral military aid given to Kiev since the start of the war has come from Washington.
Next comes neighboring Poland (disbursed just under a billion euros), whose support is mainly financial, then the United Kingdom (0.7 billion), the second provider of military aid to the Ukrainians after the United States.
Estonia’s effort
The first two powers of the EU, Germany and France, come later, the first mainly because of humanitarian aid and the second because of financial support. Paris has indeed granted a loan 300 million euros to Kiev and sent more than 100 million euros in humanitarian aid. However, the think tank does not count French aid at the military level, due to a lack of available data.
The Elysée was indeed very discreet, only evocative shipping defense equipment and fuel than “several dozen” missiles. The data on military aid from all other countries is better known, the think tank notes, even if it is incomplete for Spain and Finland.
On the side of the European institutions, the Council of the EU has approved a EUR 1 billion fund to reimburse Member States that help Ukraine militarily. But even if we add this to the other European instruments – including a EUR 2 billion emergency loan announced by the European Investment Bank – and all the measures introduced by the Twenty-seven, the total (EUR 6.3 billion) remains lower than expected on the table at the United States.
However, the efforts of some Member States are significant. Relative to gross domestic product, the aid released by four Eastern European countries is greater than that of the United States. Estonia in particular, which is by far the largest effort, with aid estimated at almost 0.8% of its GDP. In France, it represents less than 0.02% of GDP.
