The actual aid from the US to Ukraine is three times lower than official claims from Washington, economists from a Ukrainian think tank found.
“The US government has valued its military aid to Ukraine at $65.9 billion, whereas our estimate places it at $18.3 billion,” their research finds.
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The aid turned out to be significantly lower for three reasons:
- The actual value of weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine is about 60% lower than what they’re officially priced at because of age and “limited combat effectiveness.”
- A significant portion of equipment transfers have yet to occur.
- a substantial portion (approximately 25%) of the military aid was actually loans – not grants.
“The generally accepted understanding of the United States aid to Ukraine does not correspond to reality, and this knowledge gap has been exploited to foster a growing rift and resentment between the allies,” the authors of the report who represent UC Berkeley, Stockholm School of Economics, Minerva University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Kyiv School of Economics wrote.
Economists for Ukraine is a non-partisan economic think-tank and a network that includes more than 400 economists representing the world’s leading academic, scientific, and economic institutions.
How the US structured aid to Ukraine
The US government did not just transfer funds directly to the Ukrainian government – rather the American aid was transferred either in loan form or in reimbursements administered by third parties like the World Bank.
According to the report, support from the United States for Ukraine can be split into the following categories:
- Direct funding. through international institutional accounts – the US provided almost $31 billion via World Bank accounts managed by USAID contractors Deloitte and KPMG. This was used to reimburse verified expenses – pensions, teachers’ salaries, healthcare workers’ salaries, and other critical social roles. Ukraine’s eGovernment system (Diia) is counted as one of the world’s most advanced and had digital receipts down to individual disbursements into people’s bank accounts, electronic contracts, adn even receipts for small supplies like pencils and paper cups.
- Loans. These are loans from the Export Import Bank of the United States that are repayable in full. For example, one loan of $156 million was used to purchase 40 diesel Wabtec locomotives from the US. This “which supported 800 new jobs in western Pennsylvania.”
- Collateral. The US uses its own funds and interest earned on frozen Russian assets to collateralize approximately $25 billion in loans for Ukraine and Moldova’s recovery. These loans were primarily organized through the World Bank.
- Treasury Account Grants. The US provided $12.1 billion in procurement budget for US weapons systems, munitions, maintenance, and services needed by the Ukrainian military.
“Not all of the items procured have been delivered to Ukraine yet, and it is not clear how much of the $12.1 billion has been utilized…Due to these restrictions, delivery schedules, and the limited selection of items that Ukraine is allowed to procure, we calculate the actual value of [Treasury Account Grants] as closer to $5.5 billion,” the report says.
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- Direct Equipment Transfers. Presidential Drawdown Authority has been used to send approximately $31 billion of equipment and munitions drawn from existing US stockpiles. The economists’ deep analysis of every weapons system sent to Ukraine shows that these systems should be valued at less than half of what is quoted – $12.5 billion.
Furthermore: “The vast majority of the equipment provided to Ukraine is no longer used by the US military and therefore had an effective value of zero to the United States.”
- Indirect Equipment Transfers. The US has invested approximately $20 billion into Poland’s defense industry. Of that, Poland provided about $340 million in defense capabilities to Ukraine.
- Lend-Lease. This program expired, unused.
- Foreign Military Assistance Loans. The US provides approximately $9.2 billion in loans to 17 countries, including Ukraine, to buy US-made defense supplies.
A substantial portion of United States’ aid to Ukraine has been in the form of military equipment, munitions, and related services, the report says.
“The military units receiving the equipment have been extensively audited, and each piece of equipment has been verified on an ongoing basis to ensure it is not used in ways that were not intended.”
Furthermore, Ukraine has been subject to extensive audits as an aid recipient, and there has been no evidence of issues or anomalies unearthed through those mechanisms, the report says.
“In fact, the level of corruption discovered in Ukraine linked to United States support is among the lowest of any country to which the United States has provided aid through the Federal Assistance Act,” the report says.
Ukraine was reporting to the Committee On Foreign Affairs at the US House Of Representatives.
As noted by French President Emmanuel Macron, the US has provided less aid overall than Europe.
“To be frank, we paid 60% of the total effort,” he said.
How much aid Ukraine actually received
The economists estimated Ukraine’s government received $50.9 billion in direct funding from Washington.
“The budgetary impact on the United States of supporting Ukraine has been negligible, at less than $17 billion per year – roughly the cost of maintenance and energy for federal buildings, or 0.25% of the federal budget in 2024,” the report says.
Sources Ukraine received under the “Ukraine” umbrella are allocated to other countries and not Ukraine – or Ukraine should repay the aid since it was disbursed as a loan.
“No evidence of corruption has been identified from the mechanisms put in place to monitor and audit the use of funds and equipment by the government of Ukraine,” the report says.
“The total monetary value of US aid delivered to Ukraine’s government amounts to $50.9 billion, of which $18.3 billion comprise military aid.”
US President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that Washington provided Ukraine with $350 billion worth of aid. There seems to be no basis for this claim.
Kiel Institute, a think tank keeping track of Western support for Ukraine, stated that the US has contributed slightly more than Europe, at €64 billion ($67 billion).
However, two sources in two independent Ukrainian economic think tanks told Kyiv Post that Kiel Insitute estimates only the nameplate value of weapons and equipment delivered.
Kiel Insitute also reports volumes of weapons and ammunition claimed publicly, not what’s actually delivered to Ukraine’s front lines and stockpiles, the sources said.
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