Paris, France – Ukraine’s allies have dramatically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine aid tracker showed Thursday.
“The dynamics of support to Ukraine have slowed,” the German-based institute said, adding that new military, financial and humanitarian aid pledged to Ukraine between August and October 2023 fell almost 90 percent compared with the same period in 2022, reaching its lowest point since the start of the war in February 2022.
The figures come amid signs of growing cracks in Western support for Ukraine as Kyiv’s highly-anticipated counteroffensive fails to yield a breakthrough and the world’s attention pivots to the Israel-Hamas war.
In the US, Senate Republicans are blocking additional Ukraine funding in a row with Democrats over US border security whereas in the EU, negotiations on a 50-billion-euro package ($53 billion) for Ukraine over the next four years are dragging on.
The Kiel Institute figures showed newly committed aid between August and October 2023 came to just 2.11 billion euros, an 87-percent drop year-on-year.
Of 42 donor countries tracked by the study, only 20 had committed new aid packages to Ukraine in the last three months, the smallest share since the start of the war.
“Given the uncertainty over further US aid, Ukraine can only hope for the EU to finally pass its long-announced EUR 50 billion support package,” it said, adding that any further delay would “clearly strengthen” Russia’s hand.