Major European governments promised no new military aid to Ukraine in July, the first month this has happened since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbor, according to research published Thursday.
Ukraine, which relies heavily on Europe's military and economic aid, received only around 1.5 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in new pledges of support in July, bringing the total to 84.2 billion euros between mid-January and early August.
None of those pledges came from Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy or Poland, Europe's six largest countries.
“In July, donor countries initiated almost no new aid,” said Christoph Trebesch, head of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker that analyzed the data.
Trebesch and the Ukraine Support Tracker singled out EU powerhouses Germany, France, Italy and Spain for making zero new pledges.
Non-EU member Norway accounted for 1 billion euros of the 1.5 billion euros committed last month, Trebesch said.
The economist stressed that the “decline in military support does not bode well for Ukraine’s plans for a counteroffensive.”
“Dwindling support increases the likelihood of a stalemate or of further Russian advances,” Trebesch tweeted Thursday.
The Ukraine Support Tracker made clear that the gap between committed and disbursed funds has narrowed, saying the global powers “did deliver some of the already committed support such as weapons systems.”
The United States remains the runaway leader among Ukraine’s donor countries with more than 40 billion euros of committed support between mid-January and early August, according to the tracker.
EU member states and institutions pledged less than 30 billion euros, while other donor countries pledged slightly more than 10 billion euros during that time, the Ukraine Support Tracker’s data shows.
The U.S. also leads other donor countries in military aid, with 2.06 billion euros of weapons delivered out of 8.63 billion euros committed. Poland and the United Kingdom are the only other two countries to pledge or deliver more than 1 billion euros of weapons or finance future arms purchases.
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