On August 24, when more than 30 European and allied officials gathered in Kiev for the 35th anniversary of Ukraine\u2019s independence, Volodymyr Zelensky presented them with a figure they had not expected: the country\u2019s defense budget is $27 billion short by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is not accounting, nor is it about any long-term estimate. It is about weapons that need to be bought, soldiers that need to be paid, compensation for the families of the dead, and a war that not only is not getting cheaper as it drags on, but is now demanding much more money with each passing month. Kiev has since officially confirmed the gap, both through Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky and through the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timing was perhaps the worst possible. US economic support has been drastically reduced, and the Trump administration is increasingly shifting the cost of Ukraine to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, Russia is ramping up production of ballistic missiles and drones, Ukraine\u2019s stockpile of US Patriot interceptors remains dangerously low, and winter brings with it renewed fears of a campaign against the power grid, industry, and ports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany has already announced that it is urgently sending additional Patriot PAC-2s from its own stockpile, while Ukraine has agreements for about 1,000 new Patriot missiles \u2013 most of which, however, will be delivered over time, not when it needs them most, which is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where did the 27 billion euros go?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The question now preoccupying several European capitals is as simple as it is politically difficult: how can a gap of such magnitude appear in the middle of a year in which the European Union has already organized the largest multi-year financial package it has granted to Kiev since the start of the war?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A first answer lies in the way Ukraine used the 2026 money. The previous leadership of the Defense Ministry, under Mikhail Fedorov, chose to transfer funds that were normally intended for the second half of the year to the first months of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The logic was military: more drones, deeper strikes on Russian supply lines, attacks on refineries and infrastructure, and faster funding for systems that could have an immediate effect on the front. Fedorov himself has defended the choice, arguing that the acceleration of funding has helped Ukraine\u2019s offensive campaign in depth, but he denies that it has handed his successor a $27 billion \u201chole.\u201d Zelensky, by contrast, has directly linked part of the problem to the early use of money budgeted for the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Official figures, however, show that there is much more at stake than an internal conflict over who approved what spending. The war really does cost more. Between January and July 2026 alone, Ukraine spent 1.63 trillion hryvnias \u2013 about $37 billion \u2013 on security and defense. The amount was almost 20% more than in 2025 and accounted for 63.2% of all general state budget spending. Overall, state spending rose by 18.6% in a year, with defense absorbing most of the increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, revenues began to decline. In the first eight months of the year, the general budget received 33.1 billion hryvnias less than planned, almost half of this shortfall in August alone. The constant Russian attacks on industrial facilities, metallurgical plants, energy infrastructure and the Black Sea export corridor are no longer just causing military costs. They are directly hitting the sources from which the Ukrainian state finances the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result is a vicious circle: Russia increases its strikes, Ukraine needs more money for air defense and drones, the same Russian strikes reduce state revenues, and Kiev is even more dependent on external financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe\u2019s \u20ac90 billion is not going where it should \u2013 when it should<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The scale of the new problem becomes even clearer when you look at the European package. The European Union has approved a loan totaling \u20ac90 billion for 2026 and 2027. Of this, around \u20ac60 billion is earmarked for defence needs and \u20ac30 billion for state operations and fiscal support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Up to \u20ac45 billion has been earmarked for 2026: \u20ac28.3 billion for the defence industry and military needs and \u20ac16.7 billion for the budget. The first major disbursement has already begun, with several billion going to drones, missiles, ammunition and air defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zelensky is now calling for this balance to be broken in practice. His proposal is to provide part of the \u20ac45 billion earmarked for 2027 in 2026. It is the quickest solution, because the financial instrument already exists, has been legally approved and does not require creating a new mechanism from scratch. There are governments in Brussels that are positive about the idea, and Ireland has already publicly left open the possibility of bringing forward payments where there is an immediate need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is an obvious trap: every \u20ac2027 given today leaves one less \u20ac20 for next year. And no one in Europe is working on the assumption that the war will definitely be over by then. Kiev has already warned that international funding of a similar size will probably be needed in 2027. The problem is therefore not solved. It is postponed a few months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe is now asking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This also explains the embarrassment caused by the Ukrainian demand. European governments know that without external funding, Ukraine cannot sustain a war of this intensity for long. They also know that the current front line is for many of them a matter of European security, not just solidarity with Kiev. But $27 billion can no longer be politically justified with a general reference to the needs of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European Commission has first asked for a clear picture of the real budgetary situation. And that matters. European governments will have to return to their national parliaments and voters with yet another large bill for Ukraine, while they are increasing their own defense spending, financing energy policies, facing a high cost of living and seeing parties opposed to continued funding for Kiev gaining ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Doubt does not mean that Europe is preparing to abandon Ukraine. It means that the way the money is requested and spent now has almost as much political significance as the amount of aid itself. The European loan is accompanied by explicit conditions on the rule of law, the fight against corruption, financial resilience and control over the use of funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia’s 210 billion is back on the table<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is one source of money that Kiev wants more than European budgets: frozen Russian state funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some \u20ac210 billion of Russian assets remain locked up in the European Union, most of them in Belgium\u2019s Euroclear. So far, the EU has mainly used the windfall profits generated by these assets, not the capital itself. But Ukraine is demanding the next step: that the Russian funds be used to support much greater defense spending. Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands and Spain appear more willing to reopen the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The obstacle remains Belgium. Brussels fears both Moscow\u2019s legal claims and the precedent that seizing state reserves held in a European financial institution would set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The argument is that countries outside the West could conclude that their own foreign exchange reserves are no longer completely safe in Europe and start withdrawing them. For Kiev, however, this is a legal and financial dialogue that is moving at the speed of peace, while war requires decisions in a matter of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Winter and the real cost of war<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The $27 billion is not just a \u201chole\u201d in the Ukrainian budget. It is an indication that the fifth year of the war has passed on a different economic scale. In 2025, the head of the Ukrainian parliament\u2019s budget committee estimated that by 2026 it would need about $60 billion in domestic defense spending and another $60 billion from allies in weapons and ammunition \u2013 a total defense footprint of about $120 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was already the highest bill since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Those calculations were made before Russia further increased the pressure with ballistic missiles, massive drone strikes, and systematic strikes on Ukrainian economic infrastructure. They were also made with the expectation that the Western supply chain would remain more predictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Ukraine simultaneously needs more drones to maintain its own deep-strike capability, more air defense missiles to protect cities and industry, and more money simply to maintain an army of hundreds of thousands of people at war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The real problem for Europe therefore lies beyond the $27 billion. The question is how much does a Ukraine that does not lose the war cost annually if the United States no longer wants to foot the bulk of the bill. Until now, the European response has been that the money will be found. The European Union and its member states have collectively poured more than \u20ac220 billion into Ukraine and its people since the Russian invasion began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the August request showed something that European governments will find increasingly difficult to ignore: it is no longer enough to approve large packages with a two- or three-year horizon. The pace of war can consume money much faster than the pace at which European bureaucracy has planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Kiev, time is now measured in Patriot missiles, daily drone production and soldier salaries. For Europe, it is measured in loan installments, national budgets and political approvals. This gap between the two times is perhaps the most dangerous \u201chole\u201d of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainians protect Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is better to give them money and weapons than for Ukraine to fall and then for the Russians to have the remaining “Ukrainians” attack Europe and have destruction worth tens of trillions of euros. The Russians did the same with the Chechens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 decades ago they were at war and now they are fighting on behalf of Moscow against the Ukrainians. This is how the Russians operate. This is how the Turks did it with the Kurds. So do not be deluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European leaders, who are obviously incompetent, are giving crumbs to the Ukrainians, not because they love Ukraine and feel sorry for the Ukrainian people, but because they are afraid that the war will reach us and the destruction will be manifold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On August 24, when more than 30 European and allied officials gathered in Kiev for the 35th anniversary of Ukraine\u2019s independence, Volodymyr Zelensky presented…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,7,3830],"tags":[3227,655,3700,364,8369,7017,58,1155,1976,3395],"class_list":["post-30303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-science","category-research","category-war-in-ukraine","tag-black-sea","tag-donald-trump","tag-drones","tag-european-commission","tag-mykhailo-fedorov","tag-patriot","tag-russia","tag-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-war","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30305,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30303\/revisions\/30305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}