Marc Champion: Europe needs to swiftly fulfill its aid pledges to Ukraine

A note to Europe’s leaders: When it comes to sending sufficient aid to help Ukraine end Russia’s invasion, if not now, when?

In October, I visited and wrote about a critical mine at Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which had become the primary focus of Russia’s efforts to maximize the territory it holds amid looming economic pressures from the war at home.

At the time, Russian forces were just 20 kilometers away. Now that’s less than five kilometers. Suicide drones are hitting civilian cars around the mine and Metinvest BV, the steel company that owns it, has said it had closed and evacuated one of three shafts.

Pokrovsk is a target for multiple reasons. It’s an important rail and road junction for supplying Ukrainian defensive lines. It is among the last towns still in Ukrainian hands in the Donetsk Oblast, which is among four provinces (in addition to Crimea) that Putin claims to have annexed. Plus, it’s home to the only mine in Ukraine that produces the coking coal for carbonizing steel.

If Europe intends, as its leaders repeatedly say, to support Ukraine in securing a settlement that allows for the country to begin a stable, prosperous and independent future, why the delay in sending aid? That kind of settlement can’t happen so long as Russia believes it can win on the ground.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany has been running a project since the start of Russia’s February 2022 invasion tracking the humanitarian, financial and military aid that Ukraine’s allies have committed and, separately, delivered. The latest update, published this month, found Europe had committed an impressive €241 billion ($253 billion) worth of support in total, compared with €119 billion for the U.S., by the end of October.

That’s in one sense promising, given that Europe will soon have to fill a large void should President-elect Trump follow through on his campaign promise to reduce American support for Ukraine. He ought to be pleased to hear that Europe is indeed shouldering the majority of the burden — something he’s claimed it doesn’t do.

The disheartening part is the enormous gap between what Europe has pledged and actually delivered, which Kiel estimates at just €125 billion. Some of the difference can be put down to the fact that €52 billion worth of Europe’s commitments came only this fall, as it finally settled on a mechanism to use frozen Russian assets as collateral for loans to Kyiv. But that still leaves Europe €64 billion in arrears.

Kyiv’s exhausted defenders need all the arms and munitions they can get right now. Ukraine desperately needs and wants an end to the war, but for Russia to agree to a genuine peace — rather than just another pause between invasions — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs a strong hand at the negotiating table. As it stands, Russia has no incentive to compromise, because it’s winning.

This isn’t about sending Kyiv potentially provocative new categories of weapons. Some of what Ukraine needs would have to come from Western stocks and manufacturers, such as the air defense Scholz has promised. But Ukraine’s domestic arms industry can produce the rest. As Zelenskyy’s adviser for strategic affairs Oleksandr Kamyshin told me on my Pokrovsk trip, the defense procurement budget for 2025 is $10 billion, while the production capacity of Ukraine’s combined defense industry will be $30 billion. In other words, Ukraine can now produce most of what it needs to stabilize the lines and equip new battalions — it just lacks the money to buy it.

To withhold or slow-walk aid now is not pro-peace, it’s pro-invasion.