Ukraine’s allies pledge over $45 billion in military aid for 2026

Ukraine’s allies on Wednesday agreed to transfer more than $45 billion’ worth of critical weapons and military material during 2026, setting a new record for a single commitment of support by the international community for defense against the Russian invasion, with the US under President Donald J. Trump notably making no aid contribution.

Fifteen member states participating in the 32nd round of meetings of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an assistance planning forum sometimes called the Ramstein Format, committed to delivering Kyiv badly-needed air defense systems and munitions, drones, artillery, artillery ammunition, air warfare weaponry and other military aid.

A portion of the high-tech systems to be delivered in the next twelve months would be bought by Ukraine’s allies from the United States under the PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) program, an American foreign military sales mechanism allowing transfer of selected US weaponry to NATO member states with possible follow-on transfer to Ukraine, at a 10 percent markup of full retail price.

As has been the case since January 2025, the Wednesday meetings and assistance commitments planned no US taxpayer-financed assistance to Ukraine.

The White House, led by Trump, reversed strong US support for Ukraine, and American promises “to support Ukraine as along as it takes” in favor of foreign policy friendly to Russia and hostile to Ukraine.

Trump, in a Dec. 9 interview published by the US magazine Politico, said that Ukraine “is losing” the war with Russia and must “get on the ball and start accepting things” in a Team Trump-proposed peace deal planning major Ukrainian concessions to Russia including the turnover of about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and one-fifth of its citizens to authoritarian Kremlin rule. Trump said Ukraine should accept those terms because Ukraine has little negotiating leverage or means to resist Russia.

The beefy list of hardware and contributing states backing it with cash, announced Wednesday, was a clear and multi-billion Euro response by Ukraine’s supporters that the White House’s readiness to sacrifice Ukrainian national sovereignty to Russia would be opposed vigorously and with substantial resources.

The manufacturing and high-tech giant Germany, home to the world’s third-biggest economy, made the single biggest support commitment to Ukraine on Wednesday, announcing it would in 2026 donate €11.5 billion ($13.47 billion) prioritizing air defense weaponry including the highly-effective IRIS-T missile system, drones, artillery shells produced by German manufacturers.

German funding would also cover purchases of US- or license-manufactured Patriot interceptor missiles, and overseas artillery ammunition produced outside Germany to be delivered to Ukraine. Germany’s high tech, manufacturing-led economy is about 2.3 times bigger than Russia’s.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a Wednesday government policy statement to the national legislature said the Germany has substantial weight internationally and would not stand by and let nuclear-armed states like the US and Russia dictate the terms of European security.

“We must not stand by and watch as the world is reordered,” Merz said in part. “We are the EU’s most populous and economically-strongest country (and) Germany bears particular responsibility in shaping a new European order.”

Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal in Wednesday comments to media said that his ministry had just signed defense agreements with Germany worth over €12 billion ($14.06 billion), a key component of which would be a €750 million ($880 million) deal for the joint production of 200 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzers, mounted on German-made Mercedes-Benz Zetros truck chassis.

Ukraine has claimed it produces about 480 Bohdana self-propelled howitzers a year, making Ukraine the world’s third-most prolific manufacurer after the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, and well ahead of NATO manufacturers like France or the US.

About 90 percent of the components and sub-systems for the truck-mounted Bohdana cannon are produced in-country. In the past Ukrainian-built KrAZ or Czech-built Tatra trucks have served as chassis. The Bohdana system is popular with Ukrainian artillerymen for its rugged build, high accuracy, relative ease of repair and locally-available parts.

By raw numbers Norway’s $7 billion promise of 2026 support to Ukraine, the second-largest announced on Wednesday, would per official announcements go largely to the purchase of weaponry and ammunition manufactured by other states, particularly US air defense systems via the PURL program, and artillery ammunition via a Czech initiative pooling European funding to purchase shells manufactured outside the EU for Ukraine.

In per capita terms the Norwegian contribution was by far the most generous, with Oslo effectively committing the equivalent of $1,273 per Norwegian taxpayer to military support of Ukraine. By that per taxpayer calculation, Luxembourg ($208), Germany ($160), Estonia ($128) and Lithuania ($92) were the next-most generous contributors to the Wednesday aid package.

The third-most significant assistance commitment, at £600 million ($800.4 million), was from the United Kingdom, with funding drawn partly from frozen Russian assets and partners, and partly from the UK national budget. The British per contributor figure was more modest, equivalent to the equivalent of $11 per individual UK taxpayer. Per official announcements UK priority funding would go towards bolstering Ukraine’s air defense capabilities.

The UK’s proved Starstreak anti-aircraft missile has been a backbone of Ukrainian short-range air defenses since 2022. Britain’s wartime-developed Raven Ground-Based Air Defense (GBAD) System, marrying Supacat 4WD trucks and NATO-standard ASRAAMs (Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles), was first delivered in 2023 and is well-liked by the Ukrainian military for reliability and accuracy. Britain in 2024 began development and also quickly fielded a system in Ukraine called Greyhawk, a containerized/mobile system designed to repurpose Soviet-era air-to-air missiles for ground launchers in Ukrainan air defense networks.

The Netherlands committed €700 million ($820 million) for drones of which €400 million ($469 million) million would specifically pay for Ukrainian-produced robot aircraft. Per official announcements additional funding would go to US manufacturers via PURL for air defense systems purchases, and for components and munitions used by Ukrainian-operated F-16 fighter aircraft.

Other major contributors announcing new commitments to Ukraine included Dennmark (€250 million/$293 million) for drones, air defense, aviation support, and PURL purchases of US air defense equipment); Lithuania (€220 million/$258 million) for PURL purchases of US-made Patriot missiles and components, donations to the Czech-led international artillery shell purchasing and demining), and Estonia: €142/$166 million including €9 million to IT defense and digital warfare.

Minor contributors to Ukraine support announced on Wednesday included Canada committing CAD30 million ($21.8 million) for drones, AIM-9 missiles, electro-optical sensors; New Zealand donating $15 million to PURL, and Portugal donating $10 million for drones.

Officials from the Czech Republic and Poland announced their countries would continue funding toward purchase of 155mm shells for Ukraine manufactured outside the EU, but no figure for those acquisitions was announced.

The Czech-led artillery ammunition initiative launched in February 2024 by President Petr Pavel sources large-caliber shells (primarily 155mm NATO-standard and 122/152mm Soviet-era types) from third-party countries with funding from Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada and other states. In 2024, the project delivered 1.5-1.6 million shells to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) – about one-third to one-half of the minimum needed per AFU statements.

The 2025 delivery target figure 1.8 million shells was exceeded in December. According to official statements in Prague, Czechia will in 2026 attempt to locate funding to deliver at least 760,000 artillery shells to Ukraine via Ramstein-sourced funding./KyvPost.