Explained: Did the US really spend ‘$350bn’ on Ukraine?

Chandrima Banerjee
TIMESOFINDIA.COMUpdated: Mar 3, 2025, 08:00 IST IST

The US now sees all of its aid to Ukraine as a form of debt — and wants Zelensky to be grateful for it. But has it really spent as much as Trump is claiming? Let’s look at some cold numbers

Did others help Ukraine less?One of Trump’s recurring complaints has also been that Europe is not picking up the slack when it comes to helping Ukraine. For this, we go back to the Kiel Institute database which has comparable figures. In terms of aid commitments, there is a gap between the US and EU institutions. But EU institutions only refer to bodies like the European Commission and the European Council. If individual European nations were to be counted as well, their commitments surpass those of the US by more than $130bn.The actual difference right now is in how much money is spent after the commitments. And the US does exceed the EU’s spending in allocations — commitments that have materialised as transfers or are designated to a specific purpose for delivery. As a single nation, the US is definitely the largest donor for Ukraine. In a projected no-US scenario drawn up by the Kiel Institute, if the US stopped all aid beginning in March, military and financial aid to Ukraine could drop by 27% by the end of the year. What type of help does Ukraine get? And what does it need?Almost 90% of aid to Ukraine is short-term, which reflects the immediate reality — it is a war zone, after all. And since it’s wartime aid, it is natural for most of it to be military assistance — either as weapons or financing. Military assistance accounts for more than 40% of the aid Ukraine has received so far. But in 2024, the military aid allocation was actually lower than the allocation in 2023. At the same time, financial assistance — loans, grants, currency swap lines for financial stability — went up in 2024 and was higher than military aid.Why? Because that’s what long drawn out wars do. Resources to fight the war gradually make way for resources to keep the economy going. An update on a World Bank assessment of the damage caused by the war, which came out last week, already shows what the scale of recovery would have to be — whenever it begins. Ukraine’s buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed to an extent that the reconstruction cost is now estimated to be more than half a trillion dollars over the next decade. Up from $350bn in mid-2022 and more than $400bn in 2023. It’s nearly thrice the nominal GDP of Ukraine in 2024.That sort of recovery is what Zelensky has been trying to initiate. Ukraine’s need for assistance is not limited to 900 tanks or 700 long-range artillery guns, but a sustainable way to revive the Ukrainian economy. The mineral resources deal would have been a way to do that. Now that the deal has been — to be optimistic — put on hold, the UK and France have started working on a ceasefire deal for Trump’s approval. (All of this, while Russia’s economy shows a stubborn resilience to the war and sanctions — because China and India emerged as its largest markets, and because the EU is still spending more money on Russian oil and gas than on financial aid to Ukraine.)Zelensky, meanwhile, has said that things will be “difficult without the US support”. And, lest he should be interpreted as ungrateful again, he posted a ‘thank you’ to every political leader who tweeted in support of Ukraine after the White House meeting — 39 times.","@type":"NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/international/explained-did-the-us-really-spend-350bn-on-ukraine/articleshow/118664897.cms","inLanguage":"en","headline":"Explained: Did the US really spend ‘$350bn’ on Ukraine?","keywords":"zelensky,white house,volodymyr zelensky,ukraine,trump zelensky,trump,russia ukraine war,russia ukraine,jd vance,donald trump","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/international/explained-did-the-us-really-spend-350bn-on-ukraine/articleshow/118664897.cms","datePublished":"2025-03-02T20:11:00+05:30","dateModified":"2025-03-03T08:00:00+05:30","description":"International News: The US now sees all of its aid to Ukraine as a form of debt — and wants Zelensky to be grateful for it. But has it really spent as much as Trump is cl","thumbnailUrl":"https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/msid-118664847,width-1280,height-720,imgsize-62334,resizemode-6,overlay-toi_sw,pt-32,y_pad-40/photo.jpg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Chandrima Banerjee","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toireporter/author-Chandrima-Banerjee-479250999.cms"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Times Of India","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.toiimg.com/photo/msid-92877370/92877370.jpg","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/resizemode-4,width-1280,height-720,msid-118664847/118664847.jpg","width":1280,"height":720},"isAccessibleForFree":false,"isPartOf":{"@type":["CreativeWork","Product"],"name":"Times of india","productID":"timesofindia.com:showcase"},"hasPart":{"@type":"WebPageElement","isAccessibleForFree":false,"cssSelector":".paywall"}}