The US, EU, and other allies have spent over $287 billion in total on supporting Ukraine since just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy think tank.
The United States is the single largest donor to Ukraine, having provided over $122 billion in financial, humanitarian, and military assistance.
EU member states, and the European Commission, combined have spent around the same amount -- $121.87 billion -- as the United States between January 2022 and December 2024.
But these figures change when assistance to refugees is included.
The EU has spent an additional $131 billion to support Ukrainian refugees, according to the Kiel Institute. Some 4.4 million Ukrainian refugees currently reside in the EU, according to the United Nations.
That would put the total EU assistance to Ukraine, including refugees forced to flee the country, at over $251 billion.
This estimate is based on refugee costs from the OECD's International Migration Outlook report that was published in October 2022. Many EU countries have since reduced financial support to Ukrainian refugees.
A significant proportion of Ukrainian refugees in the EU work and contribute to state budgets. In Poland, the employment rate among Ukrainian refugees is estimated to be around 65 percent.
The United States recently suspended its main program supporting Ukrainian refugees, Uniting For Ukraine.
Over 236,000 Ukrainians were approved to resettle in the United States under the program as of April 2024, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But the United States allocated limited funds for the program, with beneficiaries required to have a financial supporter in the United States to cover the costs of their stay.
Is All Of This Aid A Gift?
Part of the aid disbursed to Ukraine comes in the form of loans to be paid back by Kyiv or through profits from frozen Russian assets.
The United States, EU, and others froze around $300 billion owned by Russia's central bank after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
In January, the European Commission sent Ukraine 3 billion euros that it said would be repaid through profits from frozen Russian assets.
Meanwhile, some of the aid provided by the United States and other countries does not reach Ukraine. That's because the funds are used to purchase military equipment or invest in defense production abroad.
For example, around $7 billion of the $61 billion US aid package passed by Congress in 2024 was planned to be used to enhance the US production of equipment like 155-millimeter shells, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Other parts of the aid package, amounting to billions, were expected to be used by Ukraine to purchase equipment from US arms manufacturers.
How expensive is aid to Ukraine compared to Russia's war effort?
The United States spent about 0.53 percent of its GDP of around $23 trillion on aid to Ukraine from January 2022 to December 2024. That amounts to less than 0.2 percent of GDP annually. EU members and institutions allocated 0.7 percent of their annual GDP, which was $17.1 trillion in 2021. Russia, meanwhile, spent almost 6 percent of its approximately $2 trillion GDP on its military in 2023, according to SIPRI data.
