Ukraine's defeat will cost US many times more than aid, report says
Photo: Helping Ukraine will cost the US less than Kyiv's defeat (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
Russia's victory in the war will not only prevent money from being saved on US weapons supplied to Ukraine but will also require an increase in Pentagon spending of more than $800 billion by 2029, Bloomberg reports.
An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has shown that the ultimate success of President Vladimir Putin's invasion will change the face of Europe and give Russia the courage to threaten members of the NATO military alliance.
According to the report, an increase of $808 billion would be needed to deter and, if necessary, repel a non-nuclear Russian attack outside of Ukraine. This amount would change the current five-year Defense Department plan through 2029 from $4.4 trillion to $5.2 trillion, or about $165 billion more per year than planned for those years.
The AEI report focuses on the proposed Pentagon budget, “required in a world where Russia defeats Ukraine and the potential cascading impacts on America’s security as other adversaries learn from Russia’s victory and the world’s pulling back support from Ukraine.”
“We conclude here that supporting Ukraine is in America’s best interest from a financially focused perspective,” the report says.
President-elect Donald Trump has left open the possibility of either increasing aid to Ukraine or cutting it off completely as options to force Kyiv and Moscow to a settlement. Trump will inherit more than $3 billion in presidential drawdown authority to spend in US military stockpiles for Ukraine if his administration chooses to do so. However, he has not indicated that he intends to ask Congress to approve further aid.
“The near-term costs of assisting Ukraine so it can defend itself against Russia’s aggression are far less expensive than the long-term costs of allowing Russia to win,” AEI said in its analysis.
Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko said that Ukraine has the funds to wage war at least through the first half of 2025. According to him, during this time, it is necessary to agree on the continuation of US assistance.
Total US military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war has amounted to just over $60 billion.
