WSJ: Defending Ukraine is getting more expensive, and Europe is struggling to foot the bill

European officials privately warn they might not be able to foot the bill for everything Ukraine wants
Photo: EUobserver

Zelensky says his government needs tens of billions of additional dollars to keep fighting and pay bills through the end of the year. The request couldn’t come at a worse time for European governments, the main donors to Kyiv’s defense against Russia. European officials privately warn they might not be able to foot the bill for everything Ukraine wants, The Wall Street Journal reveals.

Last weekend, the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, stormed to victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections on a platform of ending assistance for Ukraine and restoring energy ties with Moscow.

In France, the leading candidate in next year’s presidential race, Marine Le Pen, says Paris can’t afford to keep supporting Ukraine. Her National Rally party voted against a big loan the European Union made to Ukraine this spring.

The message from incumbent European leaders is resolute, to a point. They will provide Ukraine the help promised, which includes the $105 billion loan through 2027, but won’t commit to give more.

Ukrainian officials said in early September that they lack funding for $27 billion worth of defense needs through the rest of 2026 and early 2027. Rising war costs, including increased drone demand, additional air-defense funding and salaries for soldiers created the deficit, Ukraine’s prime minister said.

At the heart of Ukraine’s budget problems is that the war is becoming increasingly expensive, Ukrainian and Western analysts say, just as Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities have intensified and become more deadly because of a lack of air defense. Russia’s campaign to wipe out Ukrainian shipping in the Black Sea has hampered a key grain-export route for Ukraine.

The military is expanding, and the number of veterans to take care of is piling up, said Oleksandra Myronenko, economist at Ukraine’s Centre for Economic Strategy.

Over the summer, European officials based in Kyiv have been parsing the budget data with the government there to make their own assessment of what is missing.

Some believe the $27 billion Ukrainian figure is significantly inflated, although EU officials had warned member states back in the spring that Ukraine’s needs would likely be billions of euros higher than initially estimated.

Under the EU loan package, Ukraine is due to receive $52 billion in 2026 and the same amount next year. Two-thirds of the funding is for defense.

Non-EU member states and international financial institutions were supposed to contribute another $52 billion in loans for 2026-27, which Ukraine is currently factoring in. Only Norway has so far committed to the fund although officials say Canada is likely to do so soon, European officials say.

For now, the EU is trying to avoid reopening discussions over new money, knowing the political blowback that could generate. The official line has been that officials are still working through numbers and have no new estimate for Ukraine’s needs.

Privately, European officials say that they may not be able to match everything Ukraine is asking for this year. They warn that new money will almost certainly be needed next year.

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