After months of disputes and negotiations, the Bundestag’s Budget Committee decided on Friday to approve around €11 billion in additional funding for the military support of Ukraine.
These break down into more than €2.5 billion for 2025 (plus €453 million in reimbursements via the European Peace Facility) and more than €8.2 billion for 2026 to 2029.
The €3 billion for 2025 are particularly important because the €4 billion in military assistance earmarked in the draft budget for this year had already been fully bound since last year, meaning that Germany was so far unable to announce additional assistance in case Ukraine would need it.
These funds are therefore often highlighted in current reporting, but the €8.2 billion also approved are actually no less important, even if many people may not be aware of this.
This is because these approved funds are so-called “commitment appropriations”. They ensure that the German Ministry of Defence can already commit to spending certain sums in future years and act accordingly.
In other words, thanks to these commitment appropriations, the Ministry of Defence can already conclude contracts with Rheinmetall, Diehl Defence and other defence companies and thus guarantee the provision of military equipment worth billions of euros to Ukraine for the coming years.
In detail, the following funds will be additionally available for this purpose in the coming years.
- 2026 — up to approximately €2.69 billion
- 2027 — up to approximately €3.17 billion
- 2028 — up to approximately €2.23 billion
- 2029 — up to approximately €164.37 million
As a result, Germany is once again not only providing short-term support, but is also acting as a long-term safety net for the Ukrainian army and therefore overcoming an essential hurdle for long-term security guarantees.
This could, for example, finally result in the conclusion of long-term contracts for the production and delivery of modern main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which are in my opinion absolutely necessary.
Apart from deliveries via the German Ringtausch programme, Germany delivered 18 Leopard 2A6 MBTs from Bundeswehr stocks to Ukraine in 2023. A further approximately 135 Leopard 1A5 MBTs have also been mobilised in cooperation with Denmark and the Netherlands, of which 103 have already been delivered.
However, these deliveries are due to end soon. The same applies to the Marder 1A3 IFVs, of which Germany has delivered 140 to Ukraine to date and will deliver a further 25 in the first half of this year.
Although SPIEGEL reports that the German government plans to pledge and deliver additional Marder 1A3 IFVs in the future, it is unlikely that we are speaking about numbers that would mean an actual increase in capability for the Ukrainian army. Likely, they will more or less only compensate for losses, which simply cannot be the point of our assistance.
Long-term contracts for the production and delivery of a three-digit number of modern MBTs, but even more importantly IFVs, should therefore have been concluded long ago. Unfortunately, a lack of funding has so far prevented this.
In my opinion, optimal candidates for the IFVs would be either the CV 90, where the Ministry of Defence could enter into existing contracts of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden (deliveries are scheduled to start in 2026), or the Lynx manufactured by the German defence giant Rheinmetall, in which Ukraine is also genuinely interested.
The delivery of 10 Lynx IFVs to Ukraine for testing began at the end of 2024. Rheinmetall is not only hoping to supply several hundred Lynx IFVs to Ukraine, but also wants to manufacture them in Ukraine starting in 2027.
For main battle tanks, which according to Ukrainian officials are less urgently needed than infantry fighting vehicles, an investment of several billion euros in the production and delivery of Leopard 2A8 MBTs would make the most sense in my opinion.
In the long term, this would not only provide Ukraine with one of the most modern main battle tanks in the world, but would also overall reduce procurement costs, certainly improve the supply of spare parts and also reduce delivery times through the expansion of production capacities and supply routes. Good for Ukraine, good for the Bundeswehr, good for Europe.
Of course, apart from MBTs and IFVs, it is also about contracting additional modern air defence systems such as IRIS-T SLM, self-propelled artillery such as the PzH 2000 or RCH 155, securing the supply of various ammunition and more for the years ahead.
Even after a potential peace agreement this year — which in this case would certainly not last — these deliveries would strengthen the Ukrainian army with modern equipment in the long term, which hopefully serve as an effective deterrent against Putin.
The approximately €8.2 billion in commitment appropriations that have now been approved are in addition to the total of €2.9 billion in commitment appropriations that the German Ministry of Defence has already made in the first two years of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. These deliveries will be carried out between 2025 and 2028.
Thanks to them, it was already known in 2023 that Germany would still be making regular deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine five years later.
And that is precisely the point. Very few countries, even fewer at this scale, support Ukraine in the long term like Germany.
It is an absolutely important message not only to Ukraine, but also to Putin, saying that Germany will support Ukraine not only for “as long as it takes”, but also hopefully now with a change in German leadership with “whatever it takes”.
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