Denmark's Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announcing that Sweden and Denmark are joining forces to buy air defence for Ukraine, in Gothenburg, Sweden on Feb. 3. Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/TT/TT News Agency/Reuters
As the Trump Administration has stopped providing weapons to Ukraine, how is Kyiv surviving against Russia? One answer is its own ingenuity in building drones and missiles. But Western Europe has also stepped up, as a new report from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy documents.
The German think tank found that American aid for Ukraine plummeted 99% in 2025. Yet in the last year Europe has "sharply" increased its overall support to "offset much of the reduction in US allocations," Kiel says. European military aid increased 67% in 2025 compared to the average between 2022 and 2024.
The Trump Administration remains willing to sell weapons even if it will no longer donate them. Kiel says non-U.S. NATO members bought more than $4.3 billion in American weapons for Ukraine, an effort that has been especially important for its air defenses. The report says Denmark and at least 10 other countries have made financial donations to help Ukraine produce its own weapons.
Europe increased its financial and humanitarian support for Ukraine by 59% in 2025 compared to the previous wartime average. In December the European Union agreed to provide Ukraine with a loan of nearly $107 billion, and Kyiv can use it to support its military, unlike previous financial support.
This increased European backing has helped Ukraine hold the line. The Kremlin has failed to seize the eastern city of Pokrovsk despite trying for two years, and its advances elsewhere have been slow and costly.
Yet even with Europe's increasing support last year, military allocations from all partners worldwide for Ukraine were 4% below 2022 levels, "which had previously been the lowest annual figure since the start of the war," Kiel warns.
Ukraine has especially felt America's absence in a shortage of Patriot interceptors, which are its main defense against Russian ballistic missiles. The Kremlin continues its missile blitz, firing more than 7,000 drones and at least 266 missiles since Jan. 1, according to the Institute for the Study of War. This month President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had conducted "a record number of ballistic strikes" as it targets Ukrainian energy infrastructure to freeze Ukrainians into submission this winter.
President Trump has wanted Europe to do more for Ukraine, and on the evidence it is. But Vladimir Putin won't end his campaign of conquest until the costs are higher than the benefits. And that still requires more American weapons and sanctions pressure to shrink the financing for his war machine.