New polling has found that public willingness to support Ukraine until victory has slumped over the past year across seven European nations. Whether we call it fatalism, pragmatism or merely fatigue, it is a sense shared by the countries’ leaders. With the US preparing to force Kyiv into negotiations, Europe is ready to stand by.
The most fundamental issue is that, if called upon to replace US weaponry to Ukraine, Europe simply could not make up the shortfall. While the continent has collectively allocated more aid over the course of the war than the US, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself recently admitted that Ukraine will “lose” the war if the US cuts supplies of arms.
To some extent, this is the fault of Europe itself. Analysis in May found that, without the US, an annual contribution of approximately 0.5% of GDP by European Nato members to Ukraine’s defence would have allowed Kyiv to maintain a defensive stalemate, while double that would have supported the restoration of Ukrainian land. Yet, by November, only a few nations had reached that minimum level, with defence production having also not expanded sufficiently to supply Ukraine.