By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The United States’ sudden, though ultimately temporary, suspension of all security assistance to Ukraine in early March raised alarms about Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. A lasting suspension of the aid would have certainly changed the course of the war. But even a complete stop to U.S. assistance would not have reversed the progress that Ukrainians have made over the past three years. With its existing stocks and production, Ukraine would be able to sustain its defense for months on its own. Although U.S. aid is again flowing, at least for now, Ukraine does not need to surrender if Washington slows or pauses its support again.

But the pause in U.S. aid served as a dramatic wakeup call: the most crucial factor in determining how long and how effectively Ukraine will be able to defend against Russian attacks in the coming months will be the extent to which European powers step up to fill in any gaps.

No one country in Europe has the financial and industrial resources to replace the United States, but together they can add up to formidable support to Ukraine. With or without Washington, European powers will need to surge financing, procurement, and production of Ukraine’s most urgent resupply needs: ammunition and air defense interceptors. Denmark, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and many others are already doing so. Over the past three years, Europe has increasingly provided Ukraine with capabilities that the United States has not, such as maritime strike assets, sustainable battle tanks, short- and medium-range air defense interceptors, cybersecurity systems, and industrial components. At the same time, Ukraine’s own production of strike drones and ammunition has expanded, accounting now for at least 40 percent of Ukraine’s daily operational requirements. Ukraine has also proved adept at fighting asymmetrically and capitalizing on Russian disadvantages, as demonstrated by its use of drones to find and destroy Russian units and equipment. Moreover, as Russian tactics have adapted, Ukraine has been ahead of the curve in building more lethal and silent drones within months and even weeks, rendering Russia’s adaptations rapidly out of date.

Even with limited U.S. assistance, Ukraine could, with Europe’s support, still achieve advantages that would strengthen its hand against Russia and thwart the Kremlin’s intention to outlast Ukraine and force Kyiv to surrender to Putin’s demands.

The structure of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine over the past three years has ensured that the aid has not only supplied the country’s weekly battlefield needs but also helped strengthen its military force for the longer term. The aid has been funneled through three different programs, each authorized and appropriated by Congress. The most prominent program, and the most affected by the temporary U.S. hold on aid, is the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which Washington first employed to meet Ukraine’s urgent, immediate battlefield needs. PDA allows the Department of Defense to pull U.S. systems from its military stocks and deliver them swiftly to partners and allies in need, sometimes within weeks, sometimes within months. Ukraine is not the only recipient of PDA: the United States has used the authority to supply both Israel and Taiwan with weapons systems. But after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine has become by far the largest recipient of this aid. Congress massively enhanced the scale of PDA support to Ukraine from $200 million in 2021 to a total of $33.3 billion for 2022 through 2024. In January 2022, U.S. weapons deliveries surged, with Javelin and Stinger missiles, armored personnel carriers, battle tanks, radars, UAVs, artillery systems, artillery rockets, ammunition, missiles, and air defense systems and interceptors all making their way to Ukraine. The donations, reinforced by comparable donations from European militaries, not only provided ammunition for immediate defense against Russia’s invasion and occupation but also enabled Ukraine to amass the core of a modern and durable NATO-style military.

In addition, in 2022, Congress authorized the creation of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), providing $33.3 billion in funding from 2022 to 2024 to defend Ukraine against the longer-term threats that Putin poses to European security. Unlike PDA, USAI does not draw from U.S. military stocks, it is a fund to contract and procure military capabilities for Ukraine that the United States itself does not have on hand to donate in sufficient quantities or exportable types. For example, USAI has funded the procurement of resources with longer lead times, including hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of air defense interceptors, UAVs, coastal defense systems, and air defense systems. It has also funded investments in Ukraine’s defense industrial production and the maintenance and sustainment of military equipment that has already been donated, so that Ukraine can build on U.S. and European donations instead of driving them broken and useless into the ground, as Russia has been. Europe, for its part, has also invested in similar contracting and procurement of resources for Ukraine, with states participating in such efforts both individually and through the European Union.

Finally, the Foreign Military Financing program has strengthened Ukraine’s medium- to longer-term security. FMF allows the United States to work with partners across the globe on missions that address a host of defense issues, including counterterrorism and threats from common adversaries such as China, Iran, and Russia. A country’s FMF funding usually ranges in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, but since the full-scale Russian invasion began, Congress has provided Ukraine with $6.7 billion in funding through FMF. The funding has been used for new contracts and procurement from U.S. defense companies of big-ticket items, including air defense, armored vehicles, anti-armor systems, and radars.

These programs have massively boosted Ukraine’s defenses for the past three years, enough so that a temporary pause in assistance would not cripple the country’s military. Indeed, in late 2024, U.S. officials assessed that Ukraine’s existing stocks, the delivery of the fourth-quarter PDA packages and USAI contracts, European donations, and, most important, Kyiv’s own surging domestic production of ammunition and UAVs could sustain Ukraine’s plans for defense through mid-2025. Russia is a brutal aggressor, but its military method of relentless assaults, sacrificing masses of personnel and equipment, produces only incremental gains over weeks and months, and its targeting of civilian targets and critical infrastructure with missiles and UAVs has not broken Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting. Ukraine is suffering, but it is unlikely to face imminent defeat.

 

United Front

Continued U.S. support is key to Ukraine’s long-term survival, but Kyiv and its European partners should not undersell their independent capabilities and concede too quickly to Russian demands during negotiations. By all indications, Europe has the determination to meet Ukraine’s defense requirements, and it could take up the task. Over the past three years, the standard flow of U.S. assistance sufficient to keep Ukraine supplied with ammunition, interceptors, rockets, and UAVs was valued at biweekly packages of $300 million to $400 million (the last two U.S. PDA packages were larger than usual, to prepare Ukraine for the likely uptick in Russian assaults in the spring and summer of this year). Although Europe is already spending a great deal on its own assistance to Ukraine, it still has additional financial, procurement, and industrial production means that could fill potential future gaps in Kyiv’s defense. In addition to drawing from its own weapons stocks and production capabilities, Europe can also procure ammunition and components for Ukraine on international arms markets, as the United States has done over the past three years.

A few billion euros to sustain Ukraine’s resources for active defense in 2025 is well within Europe’s means. In early March, the European Union announced plans to create new defense financing mechanisms that enable members to devote more resources to defense production and procurement, generating as much as 840 billion euros in defense spending that addresses domestic spending requirements and assistance to Ukraine. Individual European countries (including Norway and the United Kingdom in recent weeks) have also announced new aid packages and others are preparing to do so. Kyiv, for its part, has demonstrated significant resolve and capacity for innovation. Together, Europe and Ukraine can present a strong enough front in support of U.S.-led negotiations to push Putin to the table.

Ukraine and the United States will be in a better position to negotiate peace and to deny Russia’s unacceptable demands for a settlement with Washington committed diplomatically and financially to Kyiv’s defense. But if that path becomes lost, all will not be lost to Ukraine. After withstanding repeated Russian aggression that began in 2014, building an army that repelled Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and maintaining a strong defense in the three years since, it seems very unlikely that Ukrainians will unilaterally surrender now. And with Europe heeding the call to a united defense, they may not need to.

 

 

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