Bomb blast in Belgorod, two civilians dead… Update on the situation

Two years after the start of the large-scale war, the dynamics of Western support for Kiev is losing momentum: 'Compared to the same period last year, newly pledged aid has decreased in the period from August 2023 to January 2024. According to a recent report by Kiel CompanyPublished in February 2024. And this trend may continue, the US Senate is having difficulty providing aid, and the European Union (EU) has had all the difficulties in providing 50 billion aid on 1.^{There is} February 2024, due to the Hungarian blockade. Please note that these two aid packages are not yet taken into account in the Kiel Institute's latest assessment, which ends in January 2024.

Data from the German institute show that the number of donors is shrinking and clustering around the United States, Germany, and the countries of northern and eastern Europe promising both more financial aid and more advanced weapons. In total, since February 2022, countries supporting Kyiv have committed at least 276 billion euros at the military, financial or humanitarian level.

In absolute terms, rich countries were more generous. The United States is by far the leading donor, with more than 75 billion euros in aid declared, including 46.3 billion in military aid. EU countries announced both bilateral aid (64.86 billion euros) and joint aid from European Union funds (93.25 billion euros), totaling 158.1 billion euros.

When we relate these contributions to the gross domestic product (GDP) of each donor country, the ranking changes. The United States has fallen to twentieth place (0.32% of its GDP), far behind neighbors Ukraine or former allies the Soviet republics. Estonia leads the way with aid relative to GDP at 3.55%, followed by Denmark (2.41%) and Norway (1.72%). The rest of the top 5 are completed by Lithuania (1.54%) and Latvia (1.15%). The three Baltic states, which share borders with Russia or its ally Belarus, have been among the most generous donors since the start of the conflict.

In terms of percentage of GDP, France ranks twenty-seventh, with 0.07% of its GDP, behind Greece (0.09%). Aid provided by Paris has continued to decline since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine – France ranked twenty-fourth in April 2023 and thirteenth in the summer of 2022.