ANALYSIS: The Path to 5%—What the 140 Billion Hides

Germany and the United Kingdom Lead the Way

According to data from the Kiel Institute reported by RBC-Ukraine on July 19, 2026, Germany allocated 11.5 billion euros in its 2026 budget, while the United Kingdom has earmarked approximately 4.4 billion euros. Since the start of the war, these two countries have remained the two largest European contributors in absolute terms, a position also confirmed by Euromaidan Press in its analysis of the Kiel Institute’s data for the year 2025.

Norway, a country with a national budget far more modest than Germany’s, has set aside 7.6 billion euros, 80% of which is earmarked specifically for the purchase of weapons rather than for budgetary or humanitarian aid. A small country that devotes such a large proportion of its budget to weapons rather than symbolic gestures sends a clearer message than any summit declaration.

The More Low-Key Contributors: An Uneven Geography

Sweden added an additional 1 billion euros earlier this year, according to the same Kiel data. Denmark and the Netherlands remain regular partners, although their spring aid packages were more modest than previous ones. This pattern of contributions reveals a persistent divide within the Western camp itself: countries in northern and eastern Europe, geographically close to the Russian threat, contribute proportionally far more than some major countries in the south of the continent.

According to the RBC-Ukraine report, reaching the 140 billion target will be “extremely difficult” without a stronger commitment from France and Italy, two major economies in the eurozone whose contributions, as a proportion of their GDP, remain lower than those of much smaller countries such as Norway or Denmark.

10 billion delivered out of 70 promised

This is the most telling figure in this report: as of the end of April 2026, only about 10 billion euros had actually been disbursed out of the 70 billion promised for the year, according to an analysis by RBC-Ukraine. This is not merely an administrative delay; it is a pace that, if maintained, would result in a total disbursement of approximately 30 billion euros by the end of the year—less than half of the initial commitment.

This type of gap between announcement and execution is not unique to this funding cycle. It mirrors a pattern already observed in previous European aid packages, where logistical delays, national approval procedures, and negotiations over burden-sharing systematically slow down the actual implementation of the figures announced with great fanfare.

What the delay means on the ground

A euro promised in July and delivered in December does not have the same value as a euro delivered in July: on a front where every week counts, the disbursement schedule is almost as important as the amount itself. This delay has direct consequences for Ukraine’s ability to plan its ammunition purchases, repair its air defense systems, and maintain its units in operational condition.

Without publicly criticizing their allies, Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly emphasized behind the scenes—according to Western sources cited in the specialized press—that the predictability of funding matters just as much as its total volume. A country that plans its defense over a two-year horizon needs to know not only how much it will receive, but above all, when.

A Tool Born Out of U.S. Funding Cuts

In response to the decline in direct U.S. funding under the Trump administration, NATO established the PURL mechanism—the Priority Ukrainian Requirements List—which allows non-U.S. allies to collectively fund the purchase of U.S. weapons drawn directly from U.S. stockpiles. According to a report by the Kiel Institute, by the end of 2025, this mechanism had brought together 24 donors, contributing a total of at least 3.7 billion euros.

The Netherlands and Norway are among the largest contributors to this mechanism, each having allocated more than 700 million euros, followed by Germany and Canada, with approximately 600 and 550 million euros, respectively, according to the same data. PURL originated as a result of U.S. political pressure, but it has become—almost by accident—one of the most effective mechanisms in this effort to turn a European check into rapid delivery.

A Structural Rebalancing of Funding

According to the Kiel Institute’s tracking, the share of aid coming from existing stockpiles—which can be mobilized more quickly than new production—had fallen to just 7% of total military aid in the first half of 2025, before rising to 35% in the second half, thanks precisely to the PURL mechanism. This shift illustrates a genuine institutional adaptation by the Alliance in the face of the gradual withdrawal of its main historical contributor.

However, this rebalancing does not resolve the central problem: the majority of funding still flows through bilateral channels and European loans, whose disbursement times remain—as shown by the figure of 10 billion delivered out of 70 promised—significantly slower than the operational needs on the front lines.

A U.S. Exclusion That Has Become Structural

The Ankara Summit declaration explicitly mentions the 31 European allies and Canada—excluding the United States—as the parties responsible for the 140 billion funding formula. According to an analysis by Defence Ukraine, this exclusion formalizes a long-standing U.S. demand: that Europe shoulder the bulk of the financial burden for its own continental security, while Washington focuses its budgetary efforts on other strategic priorities.

The decision to denominate the entire commitment in euros rather than dollars was perceived, according to the Kyiv Post, as symbolically significant: it underscores that Washington is no longer, at least on the books, a direct stakeholder in this specific funding package, even though U.S. aid continues in other forms, notably through arms production licenses.

The Relative Weight of Each Level of Governance

There is something ironic about this structure: the more Europe asserts its strategic autonomy vis-à-vis Washington, the more it reveals its own difficulty in quickly coordinating thirty-one distinct national budgets. The 90-billion-euro European loan, formally adopted in April 2026 after months of Hungarian obstruction, illustrates this institutional slowness characteristic of the Union.

This loan is divided into two components: approximately 60 billion euros to strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial capabilities, and 30 billion for macro-financial and budgetary assistance, subject to reform conditions. This two-tiered structure, while coherent on paper, adds an additional layer of conditionality that may further slow actual disbursements.

400 billion pledged since 2022

According to the RBC-Ukraine analysis, European institutions and governments have cumulatively pledged approximately 400 billion euros in support over the past four and a half years of war. This figure, when viewed alongside the documented disbursement difficulties for the year 2026 alone, suggests that the gap between cumulative pledges and actual delivery is not an isolated incident, but a structural feature of Western funding for this war.

This characteristic is not necessarily a sign of a lack of political will; it also reflects the real complexity of coordinating dozens of national parliaments, each with its own budget cycle, its own constitutional constraints, and its own internal political pressures in the face of public opinion.

What Previous Cycles Teach Us About 2026–2027

Previous aid cycles, particularly that of 2023–2024, had already revealed significant gaps between summit announcements and actual quarterly disbursements. An ally that is slow to learn from its own delays is not a dishonest ally; it is an ally whose democratic institutions—by their very nature cumbersome—struggle to keep pace with a war that waits for no one.

The question now for 2026–2027 is whether the lessons learned from these previous cycles—particularly the creation of the PURL mechanism to accelerate deliveries using existing stockpiles — will be enough to bridge the structural gap between the 70 billion announced for 2026 and the 10 billion actually recorded at the end of April.

A Tiny Joint Budget Compared to the Needs

It is important to distinguish between NATO’s joint budget itself—set at approximately 5.3 billion euros for 2026 according to official Alliance statements—and the bilateral national contributions that make up the bulk of the 140 billion announced for Ukraine. The collective budget, which funds headquarters, the command structure, and day-to-day operations, accounts for less than 0.4% of the allies’ total defense spending.

This technical distinction matters: NATO, as an institution, does not directly fund the bulk of the aid to Ukraine. It coordinates, sets collective goals, and hosts mechanisms such as the PURL, but the bulk of the money flows through national budgets and European instruments, each with its own timelines and internal political priorities.

The Industry Forum: A Parallel Signal

Beyond direct funding, the defense industry forum held on the sidelines of the summit led to the signing of more than $50 billion in new contracts, according to the Kyiv Post, covering areas ranging from precision strikes to integrated air defense. This volume of contracts, separate from the $140 billion in direct aid, illustrates a parallel industrial dimension to this Western rearmament effort, which benefits European manufacturers as much as it does Ukraine’s own capabilities.

NATO’s Drone Edge, a separate initiative announced at the same summit, alone commits more than $40 billion over five years to counter-drone capabilities—an area that has become central to this conflict, where swarms of inexpensive drones are redefining the tactical balance on the ground every week.

A goal that goes beyond the Ukraine issue alone

Behind the figure of 140 billion lies a broader and more fundamental goal for the Alliance’s future: the trajectory toward spending 5% of GDP on defense, double the previous 2% target set at the 2014 Wales Summit. According to an analysis published in July 2026, the Allies’ combined spending has already exceeded $1.5 trillion, with European defense budgets growing at an annual rate of nearly 20%.

If confirmed, this trajectory would permanently transform the political economy of European defense, far beyond mere support for Ukraine. 140 billion for Kyiv is a sensational figure meant for the evening news; 5% of GDP for collective defense is a generational transformation that will reshape the social budgets of an entire continent for decades to come.

The budgetary pressures this entails

According to an analysis published by a specialized firm in July 2026, this 5% target imposes significant budgetary trade-offs on European governments, which must choose between increasing military spending and maintaining their existing social spending. This dilemma, still largely absent from public debate in several member states, will likely become one of the major political issues in the upcoming national elections across Europe.

It is within this broader context that the fate of the 140 billion earmarked for Ukraine must be understood: not as an isolated budget line item, but as the first concrete test of Europe’s willingness to sustain, over the long term, a rearmament trajectory whose scope far exceeds that of this single conflict.

Consensus on the Discrepancy, Not on Intentions

The various analyses consulted for this article—RBC-Ukraine, Defence Ukraine, the Kiel Institute, and the Kyiv Post—all agree on one point: the discrepancy between the announced 140 billion and the amounts actually disbursed is real, documented, and significant. However, they differ on how to interpret this: some see it as a deliberate public relations maneuver, while others view it as mere bureaucratic delays inherent in any multilateral coordination.

This analysis adopts the most cautious position: nothing in the sources consulted supports the claim of a deliberate intent to mislead the public or Kyiv itself. The documented mechanisms—the deferral of existing commitments, delays in bilateral disbursements, and European conditionalities—are sufficient to explain the discrepancy without resorting to an assumption of bad faith.

The condition set by analysts for the year 2027

A promise repeated two years in a row without being kept ceases to be a promise; it becomes a diplomatic ritual, and rituals, unlike missiles, do not defend any city. This is precisely the risk highlighted by several analysts regarding the 2027 deadline, if the pace of disbursements in 2026 does not improve significantly in the second half of the year.

The RBC-Ukraine report explicitly emphasizes that meeting the overall target will require a dramatic acceleration of procurement and logistics procedures—a condition that depends directly on national political decisions which, at this stage, remain largely unresolved in several European capitals.

A defense sector operating under uncertain funding cycles

For Ukrainian forces, this budgetary uncertainty translates very concretely into difficult trade-offs between the immediate purchase of ammunition and longer-term planning for costly air defense systems, such as Patriot batteries. Funding that arrives in irregular and unpredictable installments complicates the Ukrainian military leadership’s ability to establish stable procurement priorities.

This operational reality contrasts with the rhetoric of unconditional solidarity often expressed at summits. However, it does not invalidate that rhetoric; it simply serves as a reminder that political solidarity and the logistics of war operate at different paces, and that the latter must catch up with the former for aid to have a tangible impact on the battlefield.

The Growing Role of Ukrainian Domestic Production

Faced with these uncertainties regarding external funding, Ukraine has itself accelerated the development of its own defense industrial base, with the share of domestic arms procurement reaching approximately 22% by the end of 2025, according to data from the Kiel Institute. This rise in domestic industrial capacity represents, in the long term, a more reliable structural solution than reliance solely on Western disbursement schedules.

This domestic capacity does not eliminate the need for external funding, but it gradually reduces Kyiv’s vulnerability to the political vagaries of successive summits—a trend that several analysts consider one of the most significant structural developments in this phase of the war.

Orders That Go Beyond the Ukrainian Context

European defense manufacturers, in Germany as well as in Norway, are benefiting directly from this rearmament trend, which extends beyond the Ukrainian context alone. Orders placed during the Ankara Industrial Forum are benefiting German, French, Italian, and Scandinavian companies, which are ramping up production to meet demand that now far exceeds the immediate needs of the Ukrainian front.

This industrial momentum creates a direct economic incentive for several European governments to maintain—or even increase—their support for Ukraine, since every contract signed also benefits domestic industrial employment. A tank ordered for Kyiv also means, somewhere in Bavaria or Norway, a job preserved; geopolitical solidarity and national interest have never been incompatible.

The Limits of This Convergence of Interests

However, this convergence does not eliminate the internal budgetary tensions mentioned above. A government may support its own defense industry while struggling to free up the necessary funds to fulfill its bilateral commitments to Kyiv within the announced deadlines, as the two dynamics are governed by largely distinct budgetary logics within the same government apparatus.

It is this distinction between industrial orders and actual delivery that partly explains why the $50 billion in contracts signed at the industrial forum does not automatically—or immediately—translate into an acceleration of the €70 billion in aid promised for the year 2026 alone. A factory operating at full capacity does not guarantee that the national treasury will write the check on time; these are two different clocks, even when they serve the same cause.

The Patriot License: Another Form of Contribution

Washington, although excluded from the 140 billion accounting formula, continues to influence the Ukrainian situation through other channels. The license granted by Donald Trump to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot systems on its own—announced on the sidelines of the summit—represents a transfer of critical know-how whose value is measured not in billions of euros but in long-term strategic autonomy. This form of aid is deliberately excluded from the traditional accounting of summits, which complicates any comprehensive assessment of the actual U.S. effort.

According to expert analyses, Ukrainian production of Patriot systems under license is not expected to reach significant operational volumes until 2027 or 2028 at the earliest. A manufacturing license is a generous gift on paper but will have little practical impact on the ground for at least two years; this is the price of any industrial autonomy built in a rush.

U.S. Humanitarian Aid in Free Fall

At the same time, overall U.S. foreign aid has plummeted under the second Trump administration, a trend documented by several independent research organizations for fiscal year 2026. This decline affects all U.S. foreign aid programs, not just those intended for Ukraine, reflecting a broader strategic reorientation by Washington rather than a disengagement focused solely on this conflict.

This reorientation implicitly reinforces the argument that Europe must now shoulder a growing share of the financial burden of its own continental security—a conclusion that runs through most of the analyses consulted for this report and directly shapes the $140 billion figure announced in Ankara. The U.S. withdrawal does not eliminate Washington’s aid; it transforms it into licenses and technology agreements—a form of assistance that takes longer to materialize than a direct transfer, but is not necessarily any less valuable.

What Moscow Is Watching Just as Closely as Kyiv

The gap between promises and actual delivery is not only being monitored in Kyiv: it is being scrutinized just as closely in Moscow, where every delay in Western funding can be interpreted as a sign of political fatigue specific to Western democracies—a sign that could be exploited both diplomatically and militarily. An Alliance that pledges 140 billion but delivers a significantly smaller fraction inadvertently sends an ambiguous signal to the adversary it is trying to deter.

This psychological dimension of the budget issue goes beyond mere accounting: it touches on the strategic credibility of the entire Western camp in the face of an adversary who, for his part, assesses his own ability to sustain the effort over the long term, independent of the electoral and budgetary cycles that govern European democracies.

The Test of the Coming Quarters

The upcoming quarterly reports from the Kiel Institute and future communications from NATO will serve as the true test of Ankara’s promise. If the pace of disbursements observed at the end of April does not improve significantly by the end of 2026, the gap between summit rhetoric and budgetary reality will become difficult to ignore, even for governments most committed to preserving the image of unwavering Western solidarity.

An adversary that keeps track of Western delivery delays is also, silently, counting the days remaining before European voters’ weariness becomes its best ally. It is precisely this kind of rigorous monitoring, quarter after quarter, that this analysis aims to encourage, rather than settling for the single, eye-catching figure announced in July in Ankara.

The figure of 140 billion euros will be remembered as the symbol of the Ankara summit, but a closer look at its breakdown reveals a more nuanced reality: a significant portion consisting of rollovers of existing commitments, a modest amount of truly new capital, and a disbursement pace that, as of the end of April 2026, put the Alliance on a trajectory to deliver less than half of its annual pledge. These observations do not call into question the political significance of the signal sent to Moscow, but they call for a rigorous rather than a sensationalist interpretation of this figure.

There is no available evidence to suggest that Western allies will abandon their commitment for 2027, nor that they will fully make up the shortfall accumulated in 2026. What the data do allow us to conclude—with the caution that this type of budgetary issue requires—is that the path toward allocating 5% of GDP to defense looks set to be a multi-year endeavor, in which Ukraine’s fate is only the first—and most urgent—test. An ally is judged less by what it promises at a summit than by what it actually delivers in the following quarter; by that specific standard, 2026 has not yet rendered its final verdict.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist