Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has brought immeasurable suffering to millions of people. The war is directly affecting not only the Ukrainian soldiers who are defending their homeland and Europe’s security on the front lines, but also the civilian population, including elderly people, women and children. The Russian armed forces’ targeted attacks on civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, kindergartens or residential buildings, as well as civilian infrastructure, including power plants that produce heat and electricity, and the water supply, are particularly perfidious. Russia is thereby attempting to wear down the people in Ukraine and deprive them of what they need to live. This is why the German Government is giving top priority to providing swift and targeted assistance to the Ukrainians.

For Ukraine to protect itself and defend our peace in Europe, the German Government has to date (as at 15 August 2025) made available or earmarked for the coming years approx. 34 billion euro in bilateral civilian support and approx. 40 billion euro in military assistance. This aid includes air defence, substantial winter relief programmes and energy assistance, help for people who have fled Ukraine or been displaced within the country, humanitarian assistance and mine clearance operations, as well as stabilisation projects that provide urgently needed supplies for civilian security forces.

Germany is also providing support for Ukraine’s process of accession to the European Union, including the necessary reform process. Moreover, Ukraine and Germany signed a comprehensive bilateral agreement on security cooperation on 16 February 2024.

Political support and peace efforts

We are convinced that, for there to be sustainable peace, Ukraine must be strong. Our lasting support is crucial to this end. Together with our partners, we have been making every effort to bring about peace through a diplomatic agreement. We support US President Trump’s objective of ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and our goal continues to be a just and lasting peace. Ukraine has repeatedly signalled its willingness to negotiate. Europe expressly supports this and stands firmly by Ukraine’s side. Furthermore, we are discussing issues relating to a ceasefire, security in the Black Sea, reconstruction and the prosecution of Russian war crimes in a number of international forums – be it in the UN, NATO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the G7, the EU or specifically established forums such as the Berlin format.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has regularly stressed that Ukraine is willing to negotiate and has expressly said he is ready to enter into an unconditional ceasefire. However, the peace process is, first and foremost, dependent on Russia’s willingness to negotiate. What we have observed, however, is that Russia continues to make maximum demands while continuing and even intensifying its attacks on Ukraine. We are therefore maintaining our support for Ukraine, because we believe that if Russia ends its attacks, that will be the end of the war. If Ukraine stops defending itself, that will be the end of Ukraine.

For a regularly updated overview of bilateral support, click here.

Military support for Ukraine

Ukraine must be able to defend itself against Russia’s war of aggression, which violates international law. Germany is therefore supporting Ukraine by supplying arms and equipment, from its Bundeswehr stockpiles and from defence industry deliveries that are paid for out of the German budget. When providing this assistance, the German Government tailors its aid to the needs of Ukraine and continuously explores where it would be useful and possible to step up its assistance, e.g. with regard to air defence.

In the EU, agreement was reached in 2021 on the establishment of European Peace Facility (EPF) support measures for the armed forces of Ukraine to the tune of 5.6 billion euro. These measures take the form of a refinancing mechanism for equipment supplied on a bilateral basis and repair services provided by the EU member states. Member states contribute to this on the basis of a cost share formula that reflects their respective gross national income. Germany’s contribution amounts to approximately 25 percent. Mandatory contributions totalling 521 million euro have already been paid. In March 2024, a decision was taken to establish the Ukraine Assistance Fund within the EPF, and the target for its initial volume was set at an additional five billion euro by the year 2027.

Germany, alongside other allies, has offered to fund one of the first comprehensive support packages totalling up to 500 million US dollars within the framework of the PURL mechanism (Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List). US President Donald Trump announced on 14 July that the United States will supply Ukraine with military equipment and ammunition in the form of several support packages. Under the PURL mechanism, NATO will coordinate implementation and, at the same time, ensure that the items included in the packages meet Ukraine’s most urgent needs. The European partners and Canada are to provide the funding. The support packages will include military equipment that is either not manufactured by the European defence industry or that can be delivered at the intended scale more swiftly by the United States than by European partners or Canada. This includes, for example, critical air defence capabilities. These are urgently needed to counter Russia’s ongoing airstrikes, which are killing ever more civilians throughout Ukraine.

Stabilisation, humanitarian assistance, support for the energy sector and winter relief

The Federal Foreign Office has provided 227 million euro for stabilisation work since the start of Russia’s war of aggression in order to strengthen the resilience of the Ukrainian state and its ability to act. A particular focus is on the liberated and frontline areas as these regions have been particularly affected by the war. Urgently needed vehicles, generators and protective equipment for civilian security forces are being delivered there, for example.

The Federal Foreign Office is also supporting Ukraine’s committed civil society, which is a key factor behind social cohesion in the country. We are also lending our assistance to the EU accession process and judicial reform.

As the second-biggest donor worldwide and the largest donor in the EU, the Federal Foreign Office provides humanitarian assistance to humanitarian partner organisations in Ukraine and Ukraine’s neighbouring countries, to alleviate the severe suffering of the population caused by Russia’s war of aggression. Since February 2022, the Federal Foreign Office has made available a total of more than 1.4 billion euro in humanitarian assistance, thereby helping Ukraine through three cold winters.

Alongside our partners, we are also providing assistance to those who have to stay behind near the front lines – such as the elderly, the seriously ill and people with disabilities – as well as to internally displaced persons all across Ukraine. We are placing a special focus on mental and psychosocial support for Ukrainians, as well as assistance in the case of gender-based and sexual violence, and as regards the return and reintegration of abducted Ukrainian children.

Another priority of our support is the Ukrainian energy sector, which is the focus of Russian attacks. Germany is the largest bilateral donor to the Ukraine Energy Support Fund of the Energy Community, a European organisation. One area in which the German Government is providing support is emergency energy assistance – thereby ensuring that the population is supplied with electricity, heat and water. This includes repairs, additional capacity for electricity generation and protecting the infrastructure. In addition, we are also working with our Ukrainian partners to rebuild the energy infrastructure in a decentralised, environmentally friendly way, with a focus on energy efficiency and the expansion of renewable energy.

Additional funding of support through windfall profits and G7 loans

In reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine violating international law, assets of the Russian state in the EU were immobilised. It is clear that Russia will have to pay for the damage it has caused in Ukraine with its war. The UN General Assembly emphatically reaffirmed this duty based on the principle of state responsibility recognised under customary international law in a resolution adopted on 14 November 2022.

Furthermore, the G7 Heads of State and Government agreed back at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima in 2023 to release immobilised assets only once Russia has paid for the damage in Ukraine. In the meantime, the EU has agreed on a regulation to skim off the windfall profits of the central securities depositories. The regulation on windfall profits adopted by the EU has a solid foundation in EU law and is in accordance with international law. On the basis of this, the G7 announced on 25 October 2024 that it had agreed to make available to Ukraine a loan totalling around 45 billion euro (50 billion US dollars) using the windfall profits. The EU’s share of this loan will be paid to Ukraine in instalments up to the end of 2025 in the form of an exceptional Macro-Financial Assistance loan amounting to 18.1 billion euro.

Documenting and punishing crimes committed as part of the Russian war of aggression

In its war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia is also severely violating international humanitarian law and committing massive human rights abuses in Ukraine, such as the killing and torture of prisoners of war and civilians. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has promptly initiated investigations. Germany is supporting these investigations, both financially and by seconding experts. The German Government is also assisting the Ukrainian authorities in the collection of evidence, for example by supplying forensic equipment.

Germany supports the Register of Damage for Ukraine established by the Council of Europe to prepare reparation claims based on damage caused by Russia’s war of aggression. The Register has its seat in The Hague and took up its work at the beginning of February 2024. Germany provides financial support – approximately two million euro to date – and has currently seconded one expert to assist in its work. In mid December 2024, the Claims Register issued its first decision. Since then, 12,000 claims for damage to or destruction of residential property have been assessed as justified and officially entered in the register. Negotiations are currently underway to establish a Claims Commission for Ukraine, which will examine the registered claims, determine the amount of compensation sought and manage the register. Germany argues that violations of international law committed as part of Russia’s war of aggression should not go unpunished and therefore lends strong support to the envisaged establishment of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

An unprecedented sanctions regime

For as long as Russia continues to brutally attack Ukraine, there must be consequences. Germany and its European partners have responded by imposing massive and unprecedented sanctions and will continue to increase this pressure, i.e. by restricting Russian access to capital markets, imposing substantial export bans, especially in the spheres of advanced technology, industry and energy infrastructure, placing a price cap on Russian oil exports to third countries, imposing wide-ranging import bans, e.g. on coal, oil, iron and steel products as well as gold and diamonds from Russia, taking tough measures targeting Russia’s aviation sector, and directly sanctioning Russia’s President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, further political and military decision-makers, war criminals, propagandists and the network of oligarchs that supports them. EU sanctions also target Russia’s “shadow fleet” and its networks of third countries for circumventing sanctions, so that Russia’s income and supply with goods needed for the war are further curtailed.

For more on the sanctions that are currently in effect, click here.

Reconstruction

The German Government, together with Ukraine and our partners in the EU and the G7, is already beginning to plan how Ukraine can rebuild. In December 2022, the G7 and Ukraine agreed to establish an international Donor Coordination Platform for the country’s reconstruction. Although reconstruction will require significant international efforts, it also presents a great opportunity to invest in Ukraine’s future, and, in so doing, to modernise the state and the economy, to bring about ecological transformation and, not least, to implement national reforms and make progress towards EU accession.

On 11 and 12 June 2024, Germany and Ukraine co hosted an international gathering in Berlin, the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2024). After Lugano in 2022 and London in 2023, this was the first URC to be held in an EU member state since the start of the war of aggression. More than 3400 participants from 60 countries met under the conference heading “United in Defence. United in Recovery. Stronger together” and showed their support for Ukraine not least by signing 110 agreements and contracts.

A detailed list of conference outcomes and the Co Chairs’ Statement of the German and Ukrainian Governments can be found here. The next conference (URC 2025) was held in Rome on 10 and 11 July 2025. The German Government delegation was led by Federal Chancellor Merz, who, together with European Commission President von der Leyen and other European partners, announced the establishment of the European Ukraine Recovery Fund.

Tremendous willingness to help

Many people in Germany have great sympathy for the fate of the people in Ukraine, and the tremendous willingness to help is also reflected in civil society. The large number of donated items has resulted in aid organisations needing to do a significant amount of coordination work. The German Government therefore supports the appeal to refrain from donating items and whenever possible to donate money to established aid organisations instead. Donations can be made via Aktion Deutschland Hilft and the Disaster Relief Alliance („Aktionsbündnis Katastrophenhilfe“). By adding the subject “Nothilfe Ukraine” (emergency aid for Ukraine) to bank transfers, the money will be spent on relief measures for people in Ukraine.

Further information on the help required by refugees in Ukraine and on the admission of war refugees to Germany can be found here.