Vladimir Putin’s plans to capture Kyiv and conquer Ukraine in three days have turned into three years of grinding Russian attacks against Ukraine, with 24 February 2025 marking three years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But to see what has happened in the past week, one would think that Russia is not the aggressor in this situation. US president Donald Trump spoke with Putin on the phone in early February, something that western leaders have so far (mostly) avoided; Trump has suggested that Russia should be readmitted to the G7 (it was expelled after its illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014); Trump has falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war; high-level officials from Russia and the United States on 18 February --without Ukraine. US secretary of state Marco Rubio even went so far as to say that ending the war could open “incredible opportunities” to partner with Russians. That very evening, Russia attacked Odesa in southern Ukraine with drones, hitting a clinic, apartments and energy infrastructure, . And “intelligence from the United States and close allies shows that Russian president Vladimir Putin still wants to control all of Ukraine,” on 18 February.
Parallels with 1938
With Donald Trump’s election as president of the US, “we are entering a period of instability, of very important decisions that are happening right now and which will define the future we’re going to live, here on the European continent, including Ukraine,” Nicolas Zharov, president of the Lukraine ASBL, explains during an interview on 13 February. “We have been living three years now with a firm position, with a strong position: ‘Nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine.’ And now we see that Trump has actually done everything which was asked by the Ukrainians and the European partners not to be done.”
Those direct connections with Putin and other Russian officials skew the balance towards the aggressor’s side, Zharov argues. Putin hasn’t achieved everything that he wants, but he’s now “talking directly to the United States--and not to the Europeans, not the Ukrainians--talking about the world order, discussing the future of the planet,” he says. “And I think that’s bad for everyone who lives on the European continent, because we are talking about our own future, and we have some bad historical memories.”
The exact same thing happened in 1938, he continues. In September 1938, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement, aiming for appeasement and allowing Adolf Hitler to annex the Sudetenland, part of western Czechoslovakia. “We all know how it finished. Just 11 months after the ‘peaceful’ agreement reached at the Munich conference, Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia.” And the Second World War followed.
The Russians are ready to invoke power and force to make their negotiating position better. They don’t respect any international law.
“What we have learned throughout the last 11 years--and even further--is that the Russians are ready to invoke power and force to make their negotiating position better. They don’t respect any international law,” says Zharov. Now, “big players such as the US, Russia and China are trying to negotiate on the future of the world--without taking into consideration the positions of other parties.”
“We knew that we were going to live four years of instability with a Trump presidency. Now, we are talking about global security. It’s quite important to start talking about our role as Europeans, as Ukrainians in the future security system.”
Europe is not at the table
Most European leaders understand “the importance of helping Ukraine to win this war, or to find a peace agreement that will allow the end of the war,” says Zharov. Kaja Kallas, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, for instance, stated during a visit to Kyiv on 30 November: “My message is clear: the European Union wants Ukraine to win this war.”
“But here we have really a different vision from our American friends,” continues Zharov. “Stopping the war on Putin’s terms will just be a break that will allow Putin to gather more forces and provoke an even bigger conflict on European soil. This is well understood by Baltic countries, by Poland, by all the countries neighbouring Russia. And this is being echoed throughout European institutions.”
“Unfortunately, Europe is not being invited to the table of negotiations,” says Zharov. “No Ukraine, no Europe. And this is the biggest problem we see right now. So if ever something will be decided without taking into consideration the opinion of European leaders, this will not solve the conflict in the long run.”
“Pet project” or major fiscal effort?
The US has not been the only supporter of Ukraine throughout the last three years of full-scale war. The European Union, too, has against Russia; European countries have also sent weapons and humanitarian support; and Ukraine’s EU accession process has been moving forward. According to the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a research institute based in Germany, about €267bn in aid has been allocated to Ukraine over the last three years.
“Europe as a whole has clearly overtaken the US in terms of Ukraine aid,” , allocating €70bn in financial and humanitarian aid as well as €62bn in military aid, while the US has allocated €50bn for financial and humanitarian assistance and €64bn in military aid. Its latest figures were released on 14 February. “The declining role of US aid started in mid-2023 also because aid flow significantly decreased for nine months when the US Congress blocked any new aid bill.”
But “the sum of aid is comparatively low, however, when measured as a share of donor GDP. Germany, the UK and the US, for example, have mobilised less than 0.2% of their GDP per year to support Ukraine, while other rich donor countries like France, Italy or Spain only allocated about 0.1% of their annual GDP,” adds the Kiel Institute.
Europe’s total heavy weapon allocations to Ukraine comes to about €19bn; that figure stands at nearly €14bn for allocations from the United States. “When looking at the government budgets in most European donor countries, Ukraine aid over the last three years looks more like a minor political ‘pet project’ rather than a major fiscal effort,” says Christoph Trebesch, head of the Ukraine Support Tracker.
Logically, the countries that are geographically closest to Russia and Ukraine are those that have allocated the most aid to Ukraine in terms of percent of GDP. The Baltic countries--Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania--for example, were occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991; Estonia has so far allocated aid worth 2.2% of its 2021 GDP, says data from the Kiel Institute. Finland, which shares a 1,340km-long border with Russia and was itself invaded by the Soviet Union during the 1939-40 Winter War, has allocated 0.98% of its 2021 GDP as aid to Ukraine.
There’s been a shift from drawing on national arsenals to new orders from the industry, notes the Kiel Institute. “In the first months of the war, more than 90% of military aid was mobilised from national arsenals. In 2023 and 2024, however, most of the military aid--more than 60%--was ordered from industry and newly produced. This shift is particularly evident in Germany, where nearly three-quarters of military equipment for Ukraine is ordered directly from industry.” Around half of US military aid is ordered directly from industry.
Russia’s defence spending more than all of Europe’s
Ukraine’s 2025 budget, passed in November 2024, includes plans to spend roughly $53.7bn (or 26% of GDP) on defence and security this year.
How much has Russia spent on its military? “Russia’s total military expenditure grew by 42% in real terms in 2024 to an estimated $145.9bn, equivalent to 6.7% of GDP, more than double the average seen before 2022,” says Bastian Giegerich, director-general and chief executive of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The London-headquartered think tank, which focusses on defence and security, on 12 February published the . “Furthermore, if you look at Russian spending in purchasing power parity terms, it is closer to $462bn--which exceeds total European spending in 2024.”
Russia will not have sufficient main battle tanks to conduct effective offensive operations beyond early 2026 if it maintains the same operational tempo and suffers the same losses as in 2024.
On top of that, it has benefited from China’s sale of dual-use technologies and “increasingly relied on North Korea and Iran for munitions and material,” says Giegerich. North Korea in 2024 sent some 10,000 troops to support Russia’s continued war against Ukraine; the think tank’s analysis also concludes that Russia has lost 1,400 main battle tanks in 2024 and more than 4,000 since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. “Indeed, the IISS assesses that Russia will not have sufficient main battle tanks to conduct effective offensive operations beyond early 2026 if it maintains the same operational tempo and suffers the same losses as in 2024.”
When comparing these figures, Trebesch’s point thus stands: do Europeans see aid for Ukraine as a “pet project” or something that requires extraordinary measures when it comes to defence spending and military support?
“We have to not only talk, but to act”
“Even though we declare that we have to prepare ourselves to increase defence funding, to be more capable within our industries, we see that for the last three years, we couldn’t achieve big results in the European Union. We’re still dependent on the American military umbrella, and this brings us into a very bad position as Europeans,” Zharov adds. “We have to change things rapidly. We have to not only talk, but to act.”
Mario Draghi’s report on European competitiveness, issued in September 2024, , notes Zharov, and that’s a good starting point. But the EU’s problems aren’t only about defence. “It’s about our industry, about new technologies, about critical materials. We have been dependent on cheap energy resources from Russia; we have been dependent on cheap labour from China; we have been dependent on security assurances from the United States for the last 80 years. This should be changed. We have to redefine the role of the European Union. Otherwise we will face the threat of the EU disappearing as a global player.”
Decisions must be made, even if they’re not popular, says Zharov. “Of course, when we talk about spending on defence instead of spending money on hospitals, it’s not very popular, it’s not very well-perceived. But this message should be brought back to society: that’s about our future, about the future of our children. We are already in a hybrid war with Russia.”
Russia is indeed already against Europe and is even entering a “dangerous new phase,” notes the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It’s carrying out sabotage, influence operations, disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and more. Russian-affiliated ships have cut cables in the Baltic Sea (in response, Nato has set up the ); Russia is accused of ; Russia-linked bots are spreading disinformation ahead of Germany’s parliamentary election; Russia and Belarus are accused of weaponising migrants at the EU’s eastern borders. A Russian plot to assassinate the CEO of the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall was foiled by the US and Germany in 2024, part of a plan to kill defence industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, report and .
“We know--as Ukrainians--that if we lose unity, if you lose common sense, it’s easy to face military actions in a very short period of time,” says Zharov. “We have to stand strong and stand together, to make unpopular decisions and foster dialogue in society.”
To mark three years since the start of the full-scale invasion, Lukraine ASBL is holding a march in Luxembourg City on Saturday 22 February at 14:00. Find out more about the event .