Counting the Costs of Defending Ukraine

Enthusiasm and aid are drying up.

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After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western nations were quick to offer Kyiv their support. The United States leads in military aid, while Germany is the top European donor and a critical supporter of Ukrainian refugees. The U.S. and the European Union also have committed large amounts of financial and humanitarian aid. These figures reflect publicly declared support and exclude aid for things like maintaining Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the cost of this support is racking up, and the politics of using public money to do so are increasingly fraught. Some are even questioning the strategy itself, most notably in the United States. With war fatigue on the rise and important elections looming, it is an open question whether and for how long the West can continue to provide Ukraine this level of support.

Geopolitical Futures
Geopolitical Futures (GPF) was founded in 2015 by George Friedman, international strategist and author of The Storm Before the Calm and The Next 100 Years. GPF is non-ideological, analyzes the world and forecasts the future using geopolitics: political, economic, military and geographic dimensions at the foundation of a nation.