According to internal negotiation documents that Kiev media has just accessed, Ukraine needs at least 27 billion USD in 2026 to purchase weapons from countries outside the European Union (EU).
This figure reflects a worrying reality in the Western aid strategy: Even if the EU has money and is willing to pay, they still do not have enough goods to supply their allies.
As a result, Kiev has no choice but to continue to rely on US defense technology to maintain the conflict.
Previously, in December, the EU approved a huge aid package worth about 100 billion USD, of which about 66 billion USD was specifically for defense purposes.
However, the serious bottleneck lies in manufacturing capacity. Internal reports admit that the factory system in Europe is "suffering". They cannot produce complex air defense systems like Patriot in time, and are also seriously short of ammunition and replacement parts for the F-16 fleet.
To resolve this deadlock, Germany and the Netherlands have made a more flexible proposal. These two countries are lobbying to allow up to 1/4 of the EU's common defense budget to be used to buy weapons from sources outside the bloc.
In fact, this proposal aims to pave the way for direct procurement from the US. The ultimate goal is to help the Ukrainian army immediately access the most essential weapons for combat, instead of having to wait for Europe's overloaded production capacity.
However, this dependence is exposed at the worst time. Relations between the US and the EU are falling into an unprecedented state of tension related to the Greenland issue.
Fierce diplomatic disagreements, accompanied by recent threats of tax retaliation between the two sides of the Atlantic, are creating a major political barrier to this military coordination.
While Western allies are still struggling to find common ground, the actual situation in Ukraine is extremely harsh. This country is experiencing its coldest winter in years with temperatures in many places dropping below -20 degrees Celsius.
Russia's continuous airstrikes on energy infrastructure are putting both the people and the Ukrainian army at a standstill.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on January 14 affirmed that the most urgent need at this time is an air defense system, in the context that ammunition reserves have run out. Kiev emphasized that the US Patriot system and PAC-3 interceptor missiles are "indispensable" to counter enemy ballistic missile attacks.
A recent study also pointed out the technical disadvantage of Europe. The SAMP/T air defense system (considered a competitor to Patriot, co-produced by France and Italy) has not had any more units produced since 2022 due to procedural problems.
According to the latest estimate, to maintain defense capabilities and economic stability in the period 2026 - 2027, Ukraine needs a total support package of up to 155 billion USD.
