“Germany is by far the world’s biggest supporter of Ukraine.” This and many similar statements have been repeated time and again for months by leading German politicians such as Chancellor Merz and Minister of Defence Pistorius.
In fact, given that most US bilateral aid has been cut since President Trump took office in January 2025, this is absolutely correct. However, this statement overlooks a crucial question. Is that really enough?
I have looked into this question in depth, and so as not to go beyond the scope of this article, I will limit myself to Germany’s military aid for this year.
Following the allocation of a further €3 billion, the total amount now stands at €11.5 billion. A record! Never before has the German government – or the government of any other country in Europe – spent more on military support for Ukraine in a single year.
In particular, when one compares this figure with the known amounts of military aid provided by other countries, it becomes clear that Germany is clearly underpinning its claim to leadership not only with words but also with deeds.
The €11.5 billion from Germany is equivalent to the total amount of military aid being provided this year by the United Kingdom (£3 billion), Denmark ($2 billion), Belgium (€1 billion), Spain ($1.2 billion) and the Baltic States, and there is still a figure in the billions remaining, corresponding to aid from other countries that has not yet been publicly quantified.
But are these funds sufficient to meet the needs of the Ukrainian army? Unfortunately, the answer is no. That said, it must also be acknowledged that this is not a problem unique to Germany and that many European countries share the blame.
I have spent a considerable amount of time researching and calculating for this article, but I would like to highlight three examples to illustrate why Germany’s contributions to military support for Ukraine are too low and roughly how much additional funding is required.
The PURL mechanism
With the discontinuation of most bilateral US military aid, Ukraine and its supporting nations were faced with a major problem.
After all, for years the US financed the bulk of the US military equipment, which included not only weapon systems, armoured and unarmoured vehicles, and extensive ammunition packages – including for the MIM-104 Patriot air defence system, the M142 HIMARS MLRS and 155 mm artillery – but also spare parts packages for the aforementioned equipment and other support.
The PURL mechanism was established to address this issue. Coordinated through NATO, it is primarily European NATO members, but also countries such as Canada and Australia, that are funding US military equipment for Ukraine in cases where it is urgently needed and cannot be procured from other sources.
The annual funding requirement for the mechanism was initially set at $12 billion, which meant that Ukraine’s supporting nations had to raise a total of $1 billion each month, on top of the bilateral military aid already earmarked, in order to make up for at least a fraction of the lost US military aid.
However, the requirement for 2026 has been significantly increased once again to a total of $15 billion, which is causing even greater problems.
Unfortunately, it is not publicly known whether there is a fixed formula according to which the supporting countries allocate funds to the PURL mechanism, or whether this is done on the basis of Ukraine’s needs and the funds available.
However, I always consider the EU allocation formula used to calculate Germany’s share of “lethal support measures”. In my view, this is fair, as whilst some EU member states, such as France, refuse to provide funding for PURL, non-EU countries such as Australia, the UK and Canada do provide funding, which should balance things out relatively speaking.
According to the EU allocation formula mentioned earlier, Germany’s share amounts to 26.7%. With $15 billion planned for the PURL mechanism in 2026, this means that the German government would have to contribute just over $4 billion (approximately €3.5 billion at the current exchange rate) to meet Ukraine’s needs.
However, as only an additional €3 billion has been allocated for 2026, a shortfall is already apparent, meaning that Germany will either have to support the irreplaceable PURL mechanism with insufficient funds, or will be forced to cut bilateral military aid in order to provide sufficient funding.
As far as I am aware, by the end of May 2026 (in 10 months’ time), Germany had allocated a mere $700 million across three packages, which means that, based purely on the amount of funding publicly announced, it ranks fourth, behind Canada, the Netherlands and Norway.
Ministry of Defence unable to secure funding for additional needs
In addition to the PURL mechanism, the Ministry of Defence also planned to allocate significantly more funds to bilateral military aid.
As early as September 2025, research by BILD revealed that the German Ministry of Defence had originally requested around €15.85 billion for the current year and around €12.8 billion for the coming year.
However, with the consent or support of Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Ministry of Finance withheld a significant portion of the funds, leaving the Ministry of Defence initially with “only” €9 billion per year.
In total, therefore, more than €10.6 billion was missing from the sum the Ministry of Defence had actually intended to invest in military aid for Ukraine. It becomes particularly shocking when one reads a relevant excerpt from the German Ministry of Defence document cited by BILD.
It states that, to comply with the Ministry of Finance’s guidelines for the current year, no additional support could be secured through the industry via contracts due to be concluded in 2026, which would also have had to be paid for this year. Worse still, some contracts concluded this year, which would have resulted in deliveries next year, also had to be cancelled or adjusted (in other words: less military aid).
Although additional funds were made available once the negotiations had concluded, meaning that around €11.5 billion can be spent this year, the fact remains that there is still a shortfall of around €4.3 billion compared with the German Ministry of Defence’s original plans for this year. That is equivalent to the combined military aid provided by the United Kingdom and Belgium!
Additional aid for Ukraine does not necessarily mean new aid for Ukraine
Another factor to bear in mind, but one that is often overlooked in public debate, is that additional aid for Ukraine does not necessarily amount to new aid for Ukraine.
For example, last year more than €1 billion of the “Ukraine aid” was spent procuring equipment for the Bundeswehr to replace what had been handed over earlier.
In principle, this makes sense. After all, these funds allow for additional draws from army stocks, precisely because it is known that additional funds will be made available for replenishment, so that the Bundeswehr will be guaranteed replacements.
However, this also means that a significant proportion of the aid pledged annually for Ukraine is not being used directly for new aid. This has been particularly true since the second half of 2024. Since then, there have been hardly any new pledges or deliveries from Bundeswehr stocks compared with previous years.
The figures are particularly striking this year: of the approximately €11.5 billion in aid pledged for Ukraine, more than €1.8 billion is being channelled into the Bundeswehr via procurement of replacement material rather than to new Ukraine aid.
Germany’s military aid is insufficient
Looking at these examples, it is clear that Germany’s military aid to Ukraine this year is by no means sufficient.
If one adds together only the unallocated funds for the PURL mechanism and the funds that were not approved – which the German Ministry of Defence had actually intended to spend additionally this year – there is a shortfall of well over €4 billion in urgently needed military aid this year alone.
However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ukraine expects to receive €28.3 billion this year alone as part of the €90 billion EU aid package, which it intends to invest in its defence efforts.
Although a significant portion (€5.9 billion) has already been earmarked for Ukrainian drone production, the strengthening of the domestic defence industry and urgent supplies for the military along the front line, there is undoubtedly still enough money left for Ukraine to cover any shortfall in funding for the PURL mechanism itself, amongst other things.
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Thank you GAU, mega article, all the best! OIM