Public sentiment regarding U.S. military aid to Ukraine is largely negative and polarized, characterized by skepticism toward the motivations behind the aid, particularly concerning Trump's involvement. Many commenters express frustration that resources are being allocated to foreign conflicts while domestic issues remain unaddressed, leading to feelings of disillusionment and a desire for more effective and prioritized action. Additionally, there is concern about the adequacy of European contributions and a palpable sense of betrayal towards political leaders.

United States Government

European Union

Ukraine

Donald Trump

Russian propaganda winning another mind battle

nonflux

That's misleading news.

46% oppose sending more of our own equipment to Ukraine, since Poland has sent more tanks, self propelled artillery, APC's and so on than any other country. Often breaking a taboo, like sending heavy equipment stuck as tanks or aircraft. 

Just looking at said tanks Poland donated over 350 (!!!).

It severely depleted our own stock. 

Poland overwhelmingly SUPPORTS equipment donation to Ukraine, however some people are worried (mostly due to Russian propaganda bots and morons) that we are leaving ourselves vulnerable if we send even more of our stock.

Hope this clarifies stuff. Russian propaganda is hard at work.

Khandaruh

Some more interesting numbers from the same survey:

42% disagree with the statement

&gt;The Polish authorities should / Poland should support Ukraine's accession to the European Union.

35% are in favor, 21% say they don't have an opinion.

For the statement

&gt;The Polish authorities should / Poland should continue economic support for Ukraine

it's 44% against, 35% in favor, 20% no opinion.

44% agree that

&gt;Poland's support for Ukraine improves Poland's security

while 37% disagree with that statement and 19% have no opinion.

Source: [https://defence24.pl/polityka-obronna/czy-polska-jest-gotowa-na-wojne-co-mysla-polacy-o-armii-nato-i-rosyjskim-zagrozeniu-sondaz](https://defence24.pl/polityka-obronna/czy-polska-jest-gotowa-na-wojne-co-mysla-polacy-o-armii-nato-i-rosyjskim-zagrozeniu-sondaz)

opolsce

Poles went from 100% unconditional support to 50% open hate just within 2-3 years and Ukrainians might thank their government for this. 

Few weeks ago they literally called slaughter in Wołyń a „so called genocide”. Last year Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs called southern-east Poland a native Ukrainian lands, when asked about 1943-44 genocide. Even Zelensky himself suggested Polish cooperation with Putin during argument over food import. Let alone alleged Russian rocket which killed 2 Polish farmers. 

Spread of Russian propaganda is just a convenient scapegoat for the rapid opinion shift and you all know it for sure, a wishful thinking. Society is just tired of cooperation with hardcore nationalist genocide deniers with huge superiors complex. 

Still wish them a victory for the sake of regular Ukrainians. But their ruling class is useless.

NoWeekend7614

Witty_Group_272

There are huge information bubbles a normal person is not aware of. They have their own information pages, social media groups, forums, "celebrities", podcasts, "tv" channels on youtube or other video streaming services and so on. They absolutely gorge themselves on Russian-led propaganda and are genuinely dangerous.

How many of us have heard about Kamractwo? It's a neo-fascist and pro-Putin organization in Poland. Apparently they're very active, violently harassing people they consider enemies, usually those who publicly show support of Ukraine, theaters, public institutions. They even harass medical personnel for some imagined slights. 

 I hadn't until I saw a post some organization ( fb page about taking one of its' members to court.

HadronLicker

Misleading article.  
It's about sending of equipment from Polish stocks which are already severely depleted.

Random_Fluke

Ukrainians have been working hard for this result. 

Illustrious_Letter88

Ehh just look at op profile and use your brain people, please.

Xtech13

The survey, conducted by IBRiS for the Defence24 portal and the Stand With Ukraine initiative, found that 46% of respondents believe that Poland should suspend or reduce military aid to Ukraine, citing concerns over the Polish army’s combat readiness and doubts about the transparency of aid usage.

The survey also found that more Poles currently oppose Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO than support it.

Themetalin

That’s good actually. It’s time for Ukraine to stop fighting for nothing. Every day Ukrainian men are sacrificing their lives to protect countries like Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. It’s time for polish farmers, konfa and mentzen supporters and for nawrocki himself to show the whole world how they can deal with Russians xD

acubenchik

Traditional_Ad_9378

These are incredibly basic categories; what does budget support even mean? Also where does the rest go?

BearlyAwesomeHeretic

Isn't most of the 70B going back to the American war businesses

slatchaw

Should've sent more weapons and less cash back in 2022.

RNKKNR

These kinds of things are always so misleading.

So, we sent them $70.6B in weapons, equipment, and other military support.

Thing is, it isn't like we made stuff and sent it to them.  We sent them old stuff, sitting outside going unused, in the possibility they may need to be called upon some day.  It was mostly obsolete equipment, no longer considered for "front line" use.  Stuff was built decades ago, and most of it had a LOT of mileage and wear and tear.

As for weapons, here is the thing.  America makes tons of ordnance.  From air to air missiles, air to surface missiles, anti-tank missiles, small arms ammo, etc, etc.  All of these things do not live forever.  They are built, stored, and at some point expire.  When those things are about to expire, they are often shipped to front line units to shoot off for training purposes.  We keep massive stockpiles so we have them ready in case of war, and our troops cannot even shoot them off fast enough in peacetime.  When our long war in Afghanistan was mostly limited engagements, we didn't get a lot of use for many of these weapons.  So, instead of just sending them back to the manufacturer, who charges a fee to dispose of them, we threw them on a ship for Ukraine.

Imagine you have 2 pretty new cars, and your kid got your previous cars.  After 10 years, your kids move out, and buy themselves new cars.  Their old cars would be what was given to Ukraine.  They still work, but are not really costing you anything at all to just get rid of them.  You got your money's worth out of them.

There is just a lot more to "$70B in military aid" than people realize, and many people think somehow that \*cost\* America that much, but in reality it probably didn't even cost 10% of that in transportation charges and spare parts.

And that old ass ammo?  It sometimes isn't that reliable either.  I saw a good chunk of "old TOW" (anti-tank missiles) get fired off at multiple army posts that flew out of the tube and went straight into the air or straight into the ground.  THAT is what we are giving them, and they are making that shit work.

We spent trillions fighting Russia in the cold war, and now we could end it, forever, and completely, by just a steady stream of old crap going to Ukraine.

bad_syntax

I don't get how this ever became "controversial" but yet here we are

Southern_Jaguar

I _see_ those numbers, but I _know_ that we've sent $350B to Ukraine and they lost all the money. That's what I saw on Twitter so I know it's true. 
-MAGA

rdbpdx

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for treaties with Russia and the west. The former involved no invasions and the latter involved protection. They’ve now been screwed over by both sides.

akshayjamwal

Any existing visualizations on the overhead costs? Spent time at the HQ in charge of UKR military assistance and I know there were costs in buffing up our own deterrence measures in Europe, plans to evac US citizens, etc. 

Waiting for the "should've spent it on this niche focus area or let me keep my ~$80/yr, what a waste!" to see who lacks understanding of how global issues impact joe-selfish internet gnome's need to buy more stuff.

berowe

Now we just need a visualization for the people in the back thinking we are literally strapping money to pallets and flying it over to Ukraine for them to understand that we're basically instead giving Ukraine a gift card to the American Military Industrial Complex store so that money is ultimately going to Americans to produce the weapons and vehicles we give to Ukraine. 

SecondBestNameEver

I have a question about these numbers? Is it based on the “value” of the items they sent them? From what I understand, the US enormously inflate the price of their weapons vs other countries…. So $100m from Europe may actually be worth more than $195m from the US? Or have I got that completely wrong?

Global-Cattle-6285

Also, a lot of the weapons are old stock that needed to be replaced soon too, either through refurbishing or complete replacement. Now, the military complex and supply chain gets more orders, which means more more money, which means more jobs.

waterloograd

fluxdeken_

looks like the weapons manufacturers gettin paid.

Snoo-80626

thebadsteveo

More nonsense, we all know and can freely gather the total amount online, $112billion my guess is Trumps total of $300billion is all foreign aid total the USA has given away but it didn't go to Ukraine that's for sure.

lostmanak

So, sweet fuck all, as % of GDP over 3 years even not allowing for the good points made elsewhere that these are inflated numbers

Representing these numbers without any indication of percentage of GDP is either intentionally or unintentionally misleading

icelandichorsey

I always wonder how Hawaii feels about this after being ignored by the federal govt.

tibbymat

So we spent like 3% of what we willingly spent in Iraqistan and we're squealing like pigs. Ok then.

phdoofus

The amount **allocated** is not the same as the amount received. 

There are already a lot of comments about how most of the spending is done in the U.S. but I haven't seen anything about how much of the allocated hasn't been spent or received by the Ukrainians. This isn't a trivial amount.

BrupieD

The U.S. Congress has voted through five bills that have provided Ukraine with aid since the war began, doing so most recently in April 2024. The total budget authority under these bills—the “headline” figure often cited by news media—is $175 billion. The historic sums have helped a broad set of Ukrainian people and institutions, including refugees, law enforcement, and independent radio broadcasters, though most of the aid has been military-related. In late 2024, the United States also provided the Ukrainian government with a $20 billion loan, funded by interest generated from frozen Russian assets.

It’s important to note that of the total U.S. government spending related to the war, about $128 billion directly aids the government of Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Most of the remainder has funded various U.S. activities associated with the war in Ukraine, and a small portion has supported other affected countries in the region. [See more charts](https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine?utm_medium=social_owned&amp;utm_source=reddit) on aid to Ukraine.

CFR_org

Before this whole thing started, Ukraine was on a blacklist of countries with which my particular pie wedge of the military-industrial complex was forbidden from doing any business.

In the last three years, a pretty sizable slice of the lower rectangle there has come straight from the plant at which I work.  Crazy how things go.

csamsh

[deleted]

Actual aid received is estimated to be less than half of official figures

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/new-analysis-economists-ukraine-cost-us-aid-ukraine-less-half-official-figures

Regardless, it’s one of the most cost effective &amp; valuable use of funds around. Consider how much the US spent on the Cold War. Ukraine manages to defend its country from Russia (and by extension, Europe, NATO and the US) and inflict significant military blows on Russia with relatively little funds, thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of the fighting populace. Nil US lives have been lost in this war, nil US soldiers deployed. Plus, the US promised Ukraine support in the 90s in exchange for them giving up their nuclear capabilities, so withdrawing aid/turning their back on Russia is both breaking a promise and threatening global stability.

Luieeg-my-angione

To note that this is the formal number, but if you detract the loans and cost of weapons due to be scrapped you are more around 50 billions. Same obv for European aid. 


https://econ4ua.org/aid-value/

Alexandros6

In 2019, CFR (who made this graph) was criticized for accepting a donation from Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born billionaire with close links to Vladimir Putin.[21] The council was reported to be under fire from its own members and dozens of international affairs experts over its acceptance of a $12 million gift to fund an internship program.

Junior_Blackberry779

genuine question.. so could the different numbers be from some people saying that using several dedicated military satellites and intelligence services costs money and then attaching some arbitrary number or is that accounted for in the original totals/graphs?

geddie01

Now what out of that is actually liquid cash

Hissingfever_

Which one of these include the politicians' pockets?

HatCat2012

And how much of that went to US companies to build and manufacture missiles and anything else we send them that's made by US companies. Helping boost our economy also

Maednezz

Can you highlight the 100B Ukraine “lost”?

swettm

Also how is this OC if you literally are screenshotting a graph from a government organization? Did you do this?

We call it aid but a large chunk of the money 'given' to Ukraine is to be paid back with interest. So it's like a loan. Aid to NGOs, however, is not a loan.

red8reader

Let's take just the cash support. At $50B. This is approximately $600 for my family of four. I'm willing to spend that to support Ukraine, but I can understand another family that questions that amount. I've personally only donated $100 to Ukrainian charities, and I imagine that's on the high side.

flerchin

Imagine the $57.5 Billion that is not weaponry being used instead to fill in potholes on the roads.

Preform_Perform

Cheaper than appeasement. We learned that in 1938 but too many have forgotten.

Numerous_Recording87

A1700AW

I'm not an expert when it comes to the EU, so just wanted to ask to see if someone knows more on this than I do. Why does the plan to send weapons to Ukraine have to go through the EU, where Hungary can vote it down?

If you want to send artillery rounds to Ukraine, send them. Get together with some other countries on a one off basis and agree to a plan for how many rounds to send. Why is there a need to go through the EU and allow Hungary to vote it down, when they probably weren't going to contribute to the plan in the first place?

CLCchampion

Europe's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, had high hopes of being able to mobilize as much as €40 billion of military aid to shore up Ukraine's position on the battlefield and strengthen its hand in upcoming talks with Russia.

But as EU leaders wound up their gathering in Brussels on Thursday, the plan lay in tatters — not quite dead, but dramatically downgraded from its original ambition.

The problems started, several EU diplomats said, from the plan's inception when the former Estonian prime minister failed to win prior buy-in from crucial stakeholders. The process had been "botched up," one of the diplomats summarized.

The original formulation of the "Kallas plan" had been to ship Ukraine at least 1.5 million rounds of artillery ammunition in 2025. That idea, presented last month, was shot down by a Hungarian veto. Then she tried again, banking on a coalition of willing states to dig into their weapons stores and national coffers to deliver up to €40 billion in military aid to Ukraine this year.

Unfortunately for Kallas — and for Ukraine — her plan didn't survive impact with the reality of a European Union where interest in making sacrifices for Kyiv varies dramatically from country to country.

Southern nations — much further from the Russian threat — are less eager than those in the east or the north. But in the end, even France, the bloc's biggest military power, balked at giving a thumbs-up to the aid package.

But despite being significantly downsized from her original ambition, even this effort has so far failed to garner sufficient support.

Kallas' attempt to salvage her plan by reducing its scope came after ambassadors from France, Italy and Slovakia delivered a blow on Wednesday, stressing that the plan should only call on countries to contribute on a "voluntary basis," thereby reducing pressure to participate.

The problem was not just that some countries simply don't want to give more to Ukraine, mentioning budget issues, or that others prefer to deliver their aid bilaterally. It was also that before presenting her plan and asking member states to put more money on the table, Kallas failed to properly consult them.

Another key error was not lining up support from key countries like France, as well as top officials like Bjorn Seibert, the powerful aide to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to three EU diplomats.

Kallas' failure to push through her plan underlines the difficulty of corralling all 27 countries in a common direction.

I remember just less than a month ago I saw Europeans say that Europe can manage to assist Ukraine without help from the US just fine. It seems reality hit them hard this time.

Wyvz

Why so much hate for the USA on r/Europe when it looks like the countries next door aren’t stepping up?

LukasJackson67

They mostly talk and think that Putin is going to get scared.

pitotorP

It was expected. All this posturing we will send soldiers, we will send money doesn’t mean anything without US backing.

AIM-120-AMRAAM

Now the European countries that are sending large amounts of aid to Ukraine know what it feels like to be the sucker. How it can be like pulling teeth getting some European nations to pony up for their own defense.

GrizzledFart

I guess the EU does need the US when it comes to military operations. It's also news like this that makes me doubt they can create a federated state or army

WhatAreYouSaying05

&gt;  It was also that before presenting her plan and asking member states to put more money on the table, Kallas failed to properly consult them.

This is the thing

I think Kaja Kallas was just inexperienced in these issues

They will figure something out

raverbashing

I wouldn’t read too much into this, this is their first try to do it on their own. They’re going to learn from it, and if necessary, the countries invested in Ukraine will do it on their own or outside EU framework.

random-gyy

This is why the EU will never be taken seriously on the world stage. For all the tough talk after Trump snubbed Zelensky and mocks European leaders, he's not totally wrong.

TWAndrewz

This is why the EU plans to resist Putin and build parallel institutions fail without the US and Trump. It would be nice if the EU had the strength and coordination to aid Ukraine on their own sans Trump but they haven’t. Classic case of building the plane as they are taking off. Build up EU defense institutions in the background and make up with Trump, its a lot fewer steps

arock121

Why is Hungary so desperate to have a border with Russia?

Stendecca

Why don't they just give them the money from frozen russian assets which amount to 300 billion dollars?

BeginningRevolution9

Serious question: what is the point of sending weapons to Ukraine? There is no way for Ukraine to get its territories back. There is no unified european political leadership that could command a european army in a war against Russia. There is also no way to defeat, threaten or deterr Russia as it has over 5000 nukes. What is the plan here? Should Ukraine just keep fighting forever with no obtainable goal in sight?

What ever happened to diplomacy? There is no winning this war at this point.

geppetto91

This all started in 2022 as a bilateral deal between the US and Ukraine, with the US as the main funder of the war and using Ukraine as a proxy to destroy the Russian military. The US wasn’t happy with their behaviour, including what had happened in Syria. They wanted them checked. 

Then subsequent bilateral agreements followed. The British had reason after the Novichok attack. 

Most militaries in Europe, and Canada, are so depleted on military equipment and ammunition that they simply cannot donate large quantities to Ukraine. And Ukraine have a military largely incapable of planning and executing large scale operations so they’re burning through whatever is donated to them.

Altaccount330

Europe's announcements to be able to do it without US is looking bleak. Its not that Europe does not have the money. Its just so hard to manage so many things to come together to be able to pull it off. I really wonder how the nitty gritty details of a European army will come along.

It would be interested to adjust this to the GDP per capita of that country.

E.g. Romania provided military aid to Ukraine 3x less than US per capita. But the GDP per capita în Romania is at least 4x less of the US.

SingleParking6640

DonSergio7

Yes, but Europe gave a LOT more in total if you include financial aid.

Europe has no surplus 10000 IFVs and tanks like the USA.

FlappyPosterior

As a Swede saying this hurt, but well done Denmark!

MountainOutside1742

Hello OP, could you link a source please for approval? thank you

BkkGrl

I don't want to diminish the contribution of the US, but the way they determine the worth of the military equipment they give to Ukraine is a bit different than most other countries.

Instead of using the approximate worth of the mostly older equipment, the US/Pentagon uses the cost to replace this equipment with a new equivalent. So, for example, when the US gives a decades old HUMVEE from storage, that has seen action in the Iraq war and would have been scrapped in the near future anyway, they use the cost of a brand new MRAP that would replace it in US service. This leads to pretty questionable numbers. For example, in the Kiel Institute data, a M777 towed howitzer is listed as more expensive than a PzH2000 SPG. *(Edit: Kiel Institute might have corrected these numbers at some point. I have trouble to access the source data right now.)*

I don't know if anyone has done the work to try to compensate for this curious budget trick of the Pentagon and release more comparable numbers.

Still, the mere volume of the US contributions makes them the by far biggest and most important military supporter of Ukraine anyway, even if we ignore the skewed financial values. It will be a big challenge for the European supporters of Ukraine to compensate the loss of this support, if Trump tries to force Ukraine into a peace deal that favors Russia.

Maeglin75

As a Dane, let me underline the fact that we as citizens feel no economic consequences from this level of support. The countries in the bottom of the list do not have economic reasons for not increasing it, it's something else, possibly Russian disinformation campaign.

mok000

We gave all of our Caesar artillery systems to Ukraine. [Full list of everything we gave to Ukraine.](https://www.fmn.dk/en/topics/operations/ongoing-operations/danish-military-support-for-ukraine/) I didn't even know we gave them all this stuff.

Spooknik

Well, clearly, the north remembers who the enemy is.

Strange_Formal

While this is certainly true, it's only half the story. The USA provides that much military aid, because it also directly strenghtens their weapon and armor producing companies. The EU as an institution alone has provided nearly double the amount of humanitarian aid though while also taking in a massive load of refugees. I agree that Europe still needs to step up it's military game, but as said, there are other factors in this war. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/)

FixLaudon

Anyone know why Spain and Greece are so low on this? Is it just economy? Italy is probably explained by  economy and their relations to Russia.  
Would love to see a GPD per capita comparison, it could maybe clear things up abit.

ArminOak

I think greece is a bit special. They gifted a shitton of ammo and tanks to Ukraine and are planning on sending 100 tanks. They just can't gift money, as their real GDP contracted by 30%. Everything is literally on the brink.

vergorli

Does this include financial aid which is used to buy weapons? Does this include the aid coming from the EU directly?

Bazookabernhard

"x times less" 🥴 what does that mean?  A third?

jonas_c

When you have orks on your door, you don't question about neutrality, political opportunity and many others intrusive thoughts

Nigel_Bligh_Burns

In the case of Poland the value of equipment in money was low, what is no suprise so for example demobilised T-72 tanks were sold for $50k - Ukraine got 280 of those, BWP transporters for $15k, so the value of junk before the war, but the combat value was much higher as Ukraine had all that is needed to operate those, the enemy was using exactly the same toys, moreover Ukrainians got a hundreds of pieces of this equipment immediately.

Now Poland must resupply the army with K2s for $8,5 milion by a piece - you can't even buy two of those for the  value of 280 T-72s and Rosomaks for $2,5 million, so 166 BWPs each.

dziki_z_lasu

Pledged or actually transferred?


Because in regards to USA, there is a MASSIVE difference

Ambitious_Cheek4921

Sid per capita is interesting, but sid as a percentage of GDP would be even more relevant (and yes, Denmark leads in both metrics)

SimonKepp

lars_rosenberg

Beneficial_North1824

Better would be to compare % of GDP. And this tells a bit different story. Canada for example and USA is about the same per GDP.

aqa5

The daily “here’s why the US is actually bad” from our allies in r/Europe. You all should probably stop worrying about accounting gymnastics and figuring out how to goad the US into giving more, and instead worry about why the fuck numerous countries IN EUROPE are seemingly fine with Russia reconstituting the former Soviet Empire. 

Genuinely, stop talking about leading and start leading. You don’t need a federalized Europe for the more capable countries to pony up what’s required. Instead, everyone’s looking around at each other, or worse, pointing fingers across the Atlantic.

galaxybuns

DotRevolutionary6610

Hmm, the baltic/nordic countries don't surprise me with this number, but I have always thought Poland to be fervently anti Russian. Maybe per capita has to be measured against the gdpr per capita of the country as well.

robinrd91

Might also be interesting to show whose products were bought with the spend.

Obviously_oliverus

Sorry, English not first language. Does the x less than mean as a denominator in a fraction? Like (Y/X) where Y is the US amount and X is the number before 'less than'? And reverse in more than (X/Y)?

And for example, Poland also has to take care of ... 1-2 million? refugees.

I wonder how it looks in % of owned military equipment. Poland gifted big chunk of almost everything it had before the war.

chouettepologne

What kind of idiot compares military spending per capita instead of as a percentage of GDP. Less productive countries have less money to give.

Worried-Effort7969

Let's go Denmark!! 🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰

Så kan de fandme lære det, de skide russere

Uwibamie

Denmark ☠️. The ally every country needs to respect 🫡. Must be an awesome country I am gonna travel Denmark one day ❤️

Aotrx

KlM-J0NG-UN

Several European countries have committed substantial funds to support Ukraine amidst its conflict with Russia, representing a significant shift in Western military support.

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