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EU members have approved a €50bn (£39bn) aid package for Ukraine – but how important is it?
Headlines are so often made by vast sums of money being pledged, it can be hard to deduce which ones to pay attention to.
Here we take a look in more detail at the state of Ukrainian finances.
Top supporters
The two key players are the EU and US. As of December, the EU and its countries had committed €133bn in support, followed by the US with €71bn, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
The rest of the world donated a little under €37bn.
Most of the aid donated by the US is in military support, while the EU has offered the majority of its assistance in financial support.
Ukraine’s outgoings
A single day of fighting costs about €125m, Ukrainian finance minister Serhiy Marchenko has said.
It’s no surprise, then, that Ukraine spends nearly all of its domestic revenues on the defence sector and the army, but this means it needs massive injections of financial support to disburse social payments, wages and pensions.
The government expects a budget deficit of approximately €40bn this year, and expects to receive €38bn in international aid to help cover it.
EU aid
Kyiv hopes to see €18bn of that coming from the EU’s Ukraine Facility: The €50bn support package agreed today which will be delivered through to 2027.
What about US assistance?
Kyiv is seeking €7.8bn to help cover its budget deficit, senior lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak has said.
President Joe Biden asked Congress for nearly €97bn to fund plans for Ukraine, Israel and US border security, but Republicans who control the House rejected the package in October.
A vote will take place next week in the Senate after further talks took place on funding for those three areas.
The rest of the world
Ukraine hopes to receive €5bn in loans from the IMF this year, but those are tied to certain reforms on Ukraine’s part.
Another €1.4bn is expected from other international financial institutions, including the World Bank.
Financial support packages are also anticipated from the UK and Japan, with talks ongoing in Canada, Norway and South Korea.
