An Emergency Sacrifice for Ukraine

Written on 16 May 2025.

The latest U-turn by US President Donald Trump allows the delivery of American armaments to Ukraine, provided Ukraine pays for the purchase. Trump is a businessman: he will be delighted if the US arms industry does good business by selling to Ukraine (and finances another election campaign as thanks).

There is only one catch: Ukraine lacks the money to buy in the USA. This is where Europe, and Germany in particular, comes into play: the European arms industry is unfortunately far too small to meet Ukraine's current needs.

But Europe has something else that is now just as good as weapons: Money.

Europe is at a crossroads: either it gives Ukraine the money it needs to cover its arms requirements by buying from the USA or wherever, or Europe risks a victorious Putin realizing his dream: the dream of Russian tanks rolling westwards along German freeways, of freight trains full of loot and prisoners rolling eastwards, of a Quisling regime - perhaps with Sahra Wagenknecht - in Berlin cheering “liberation”.

Germany, Western Europe's vanguard toward east, faces a choice: financing Ukraine's struggle or risking Putin realizing his dream, as a NATO gutted by Trump looks on, paralyzed.

OK, OK: the situation is not quite that dramatic. Thanks to France and Great Britain, NATO still exists. Poland is still protecting Germany's eastern border. Brave Ukraine is not yet lost.

But many questions remain unanswered:

Can Ukraine hold out for four years until the next US presidential election? Will Trump be able to continue governing somehow? Or will the crackpot Vance take his place? Or another Republican hardliner?

Either way, as long as Ukraine can fight, Europe is relatively safe. Ukraine ties up part of Russia's military power and effectively protects Europe. Europe - especially Germany - should therefore ensure that Kiev always has enough weapons.

Practically speaking: What needs to happen? Europe, i.e. Germany, should finance Ukraine's arms purchases. What is needed is a

Ukraine emergency sacrifice

in the amount of the currently missing American arms assistance, i.e. around 175 billion dollars over two to three years. That would correspond to around 160 billion euros or just under 80 billion per year.

Germany to provide 46 billion euros for Ukraine

If we realistically assume that Italy and France do not want to pay because of their high national indebtedness, that Poland has already made exemplary investments in defense and Great Britain is paralyzed by the advance of the Reform Party, then Germany will remain as the main payer of the emergency sacrifice.

The 80 billion corresponds to around 4 percent of the entire German national budget.

If every budget - federal, state and local - were to pay four percent into the emergency fund, Ukraine could receive what it needs. If other EU countries also contributed - the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Austria - Germany's share of the emergency aid would shrink.

However, timing is important: the money would only help Ukraine if it arrived in time, for example if Germany would make advance payments on behalf of its neighbors.

It is a fortunate coincidence that Germany has just got a new government that could push such an unusual project through the Bundestag and Bundesrat.

Defending Europe without the US: first estimates of what is needed

Europe could need 300,000 more troops and an annual defence spending hike of at least €250 billion in the short term to deter Russian aggression.

From a macroeconomic perspective, the numbers are small enough for Europe to replace the US fully. Since February 2022, US military support to Ukraine has amounted to €64 billion, while Europe, including the United Kingdom, sent €62 billion. In 2024, US military support amounted to €20 billion out of a total of €42 billion. To replace the US, the EU would thus have to spend only another 0.12 percent of its GDP – a feasible amount. A more important question is whether Europe could do this without access to the US military-industrial base.

The combat power of 300,000 US troops is substantially greater than the equivalent number of European troops distributed over 29 national armies. US troops would come in large, cohesive, corps-sized units with a unified command and control tighter even than NATO joint command. Furthermore, US troops are backed by the full might of American strategic enablers, including strategic aviation and space assets, which European militaries lack.

Europe, including the UK, currently has 1.47 million active-duty military personnel (SIPRI, 2024) but effectiveness is hampered by the lack of a unified command..

Europe can sustain Ukraine's fight with Russia even without US, German general says

Major General Christian Freuding said Nato’s European members plus Canada had already exceeded the estimated $20 billion worth of US military aid provided last year to Kyiv.

They accounted for around 60% of the total costs borne by the Western allies, he said.

“The war against Ukraine is raging on our continent, it is also being waged against the European security order. If the political will is there, then the means will also be there to largely compensate for the American support,” Freuding said in an interview.

-Russia is determined to test the resolve of the NATO alliance, including by extending its confrontation with the West beyond the borders of Ukraine, the Germany's foreign intelligence chief told the Table Media news organization.

Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, said his agency had clear intelligence indications that Russian officials believed the collective defence obligations enshrined in the NATO treaty no longer had practical force.

"We are quite certain, and we have intelligence showing it, that Ukraine is only a step on the journey westward," Kahl told Table Media in a podcast interview.

 "That doesn't mean we expect tank armies to roll westwards," he added. "But we see that NATO's collective defence promise is to be tested."

Germany, already the second-largest provider of armaments and financial support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, has pledged to step up its support further under the new government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, promising to help Ukraine develop new missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.

Without detailing the nature of his intelligence sources, Kahl said Russian officials were envisaging confrontations that fell short of a full military engagement that would test whether the U.S. would really live up to its mutual aid obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

"They don't need to dispatch armies of tanks for that," he said. "It's enough to send little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities."

Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea involved occupation of buildings and offices by Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms and civilian clothes, who came to be known as the "little green men" when Moscow initially denied their identity.

 Kahl did not specify which officials in Moscow were thinking along these lines.

Merz, who visited Donald Trump in Washington last week, pushed back against the U.S. president's assertion that Ukraine and Russia were like two infants fighting, telling Trump that where Ukraine targeted Moscow's military, Russia bombed Ukraine's cities.

Kahl said his contacts with U.S. counterparts had left him convinced they took the Russian threat seriously.

"They take it as seriously as us, thank God," he said.

British people “ better learn to speak Russian”

if Sir Keir Starmer does not massively ramp up defence spending, the Nato secretary general has warned. Mark Rutte said he was “really impressed” by the prime minister’s strategic defence review unveiled last week. And he called for Nato countries to set a “credible path” towards spending 5 per cent of their national incomes on defence amid the growing threat from Russia.

Speaking at London’s Chatham House, Mr Rutte said it is “not up to me” whether that means Rachel Reeves should consider tax hikes to pay for the commitment.

He added: “I mean, what I know is that if we want to keep our societies safe... look, if you do not do this, if you would not go to the 5%, including the 3.5% core defence spending, you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries their health systems, the pension system, etcetera, but you had better learn to speak Russian.”

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