Facing Russia, Ukraine is financing deterrence on a NATO scale, without integration at the NATO level. Ukraine must be recognized as indispensable to Europe\u2019s future\u2014and action must follow.<\/p>\n
An opinion by Maria Repko<\/strong>, Deputy Director of the Centre for Economic Strategy<\/p>\n A budget is never just a sequence of numbers. It is a political text, a map of priorities, and a signal to allies. Ukraine\u2019s recently presented 2026 draft budget is all of these at once. It reflects the country\u2019s priorities\u2014already pushed to their limits\u2014but it also highlights the EU\u2019s hesitation to shape the course of the war. For the third consecutive year (2024\u20132026), this is a survival budget, almost identical to that of 2023: sufficient to slow Russia\u2019s advance to 10\u201320 km\u00b2 per day, but insufficient to enable a decisive Ukrainian breakthrough.<\/p>\n This \u201csurvival budget\u201d is not a sign of timidity or lack of reform, but of physics. Defense absorbs all central revenues from domestic resources\u2014around a quarter of GDP (\u20ac51 billion according to CES estimates)\u2014which, after the latest amendments to the finance law, is actually lower than this year. The figures will likely be adjusted upward during the year, as they were in 2024 and again this year, but for now the outlook is bleak. The 2026 budget projects \u20ac58 billion in revenue and leaves a \u20ac42 billion deficit to be filled by international aid. It is a survival plan\u2014already outdated when first introduced in 2023\u2014and incapable of allowing a decisive counteroffensive. The responsibility does not lie with Ukraine, which has long reached its internal limits, but with Europe, which must finally decide how to mobilize Russian assets and fund the defense effort at a level that can make a lasting peace possible. With current means, that goal is unattainable.<\/p>\n Since 2022, and even before, Europe\u2019s approach has followed a donor\u2013beneficiary logic: injections of support tied to reform criteria. The same framework shapes the Ukraine Facility, the current budgetary and investment support instrument. However well-designed, this mechanism remains inadequate if Ukraine is to become part of the EU\u2019s defense perimeter. With the United States retreating from its role as \u201cglobal policeman,\u201d it falls to the EU to think strategically about its eastern flank for the next decade\u2014and likely beyond.<\/p>\n Ukraine already performs deterrence, force deployment, logistics, and resilience functions that protect the rest of Europe from direct exposure to Moscow\u2019s aggression. Recent drone incursions into Poland and Romania and hybrid operations in the Baltic Sea show that Eastern security cannot be taken lightly. Ukraine\u2019s future budgets must formalize this reality: the country is financing deterrence on a NATO scale, without NATO integration. And at the current level, this remains far from sufficient.<\/p>\n This is why Ukraine\u2019s 2026 budget matters so much to Brussels, Berlin, and Paris. It is not a plea for endless charity, but a structural proposal: to recognize Ukraine as indispensable to Europe\u2019s future and act accordingly, financing the defense effort at the European level\u2014where the fight is taking place. Supporting Ukraine as a partner means stabilizing Europe\u2019s eastern border at Donetsk rather than at the Danube. Leaving Ukraine trapped in an annual project logic will sooner or later bring instability to the EU\u2019s own borders. Ukraine\u2019s 2026 draft budget is therefore not just a national financial plan. It is also an invitation to Europe to think long term\u2014and finally treat Ukraine as part of its own architecture.<\/p>\n