Five unnamed NATO diplomats told Politico about a €70 billion military aid package for Ukraine that the Alliance plans to announce at its summit in Ankara on July 7-8. Berlin is pushing the initiative. But when you break down the sum into its components, the picture looks different from the headlines.
What makes up €70 billion
According to Politico, the package structure is as follows: approximately €40 billion represents new bilateral commitments from NATO countries, while €30 billion is part of the already-approved EU credit of €90 billion that Ukraine was supposed to receive anyway. In other words, almost half the sum is a repackaging of previously adopted decisions under a new brand.
At the same time, according to Kyiv Post citing diplomats, the German proposal contains a structural innovation: a mechanism for tracking each member country's contributions. This is a direct response to internal conflict within the Alliance — some states openly complain that they bear a disproportionately large share of the costs of supporting Kyiv.
"The key is to obtain from Ankara a firm commitment to continue providing Ukraine with significant support on a sustainable and more equitable basis."
A senior NATO diplomat — Politico
Why "transparency" is more than just a technical detail
The new transparency mechanism is meant to resolve the dispute over burden sharing. However, as the diplomats themselves note in their conversation with Politico, there is a paradox here: if part of the costs are covered by broader European instruments, individual countries may reduce their own direct contributions, using the collective mechanism as a cover. Transparency risks becoming not an incentive to do more, but a pretext to do less.
A separate backdrop is the American factor. Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, U.S. military aid to Ukraine has slowed significantly, and peace negotiations have stalled, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This is why European allies are strengthening their own commitments — and the Ankara summit was supposed to demonstrate this independence.
Turkey as host and as a player
The choice of Ankara as the summit venue is not a neutral detail. Turkey continues to balance between supporting Ukraine and its trade relations with Russia, and one of the five diplomats directly named the main objective of the summit as a "firm commitment from Ankara" — not from the Alliance as a whole, but specifically from Turkey. This means that part of the diplomatic work in July will concern not the size of the package, but the position of the host country.
The diplomats remind Politico that decisions have not yet been made — the final word remains with the meeting of defense ministers and the leaders' summit itself.
If the contribution transparency mechanism works as stated, it will for the first time make public what has so far been the subject of backroom disputes: who actually pays for Ukraine's defense, and who merely signs declarations. But will countries that are currently undercontributing agree to a system that would document this?
