February 24, 2026, marks a date most Ukrainians never imagined they’d reach — four full years since Russian tanks rolled toward Kyiv. What began as what the Kremlin called a “special military operation” has hardened into Europe’s largest and deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 15,000 civilians have been killed and overall damage exceeds $195 billion. About 3.7 million people remain internally displaced, while roughly 5.9 million Ukrainians have registered as refugees abroad. And as a Ukrainian lawmaker’s recent appeal makes clear, the people enduring this war no longer want sympathy — they want results.
The grinding nature of the conflict is visible in every metric. Russia controls roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory — about 116,000 square kilometers, an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania. In 2025, Russia gained about 4,800 square kilometers, though an ISW assessment shows Russian forces remain largely bogged down in sluggish offensive operations with limited territorial breakthroughs. On the other side of the line, verified Russian combat deaths have topped 186,000 — nearly 13 times the Red Army’s losses during the entire Soviet war in Afghanistan. Neither army can deliver a knockout blow. The stalemate bleeds both nations dry.
Europe Steps Up as Washington Steps Back
The most dramatic shift in the war’s fourth year has been the transatlantic split over who pays for Ukraine’s defense. The US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes just $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for 2026 and 2027 — a fraction of the billions that flowed under the previous administration. The United States has embarked on a sustained drawdown in its financial support, and at the start of 2026, Ukraine finds itself in a precarious position.+1
Europe has tried to fill the gap. EU institutions accounted for almost 90 percent of financial and humanitarian flows in 2025, while Germany, Britain, and the Nordic countries provided about 95 percent of military aid. The latest Ramstein meeting in Brussels yielded a record haul: partners pledged nearly $38 billion in new military assistance at the 33rd Ukraine Defense Contact Group session. The package includes $2 billion earmarked for air defense systems and over $2.5 billion for drone production — exactly the tools Kyiv says it needs most.
Yet pledges and deliveries are different things. President Zelensky warned that due to delays in funding for Patriot missiles, the system was “empty,” and that Russian forces exploited this gap to destroy Kyiv’s heating infrastructure during the coldest days of January 2026. The air defense shortage remains the conflict’s deadliest bottleneck.
Sanctions: Biting but Not Breaking
Sanctions were supposed to be the West’s economic hammer. Between frozen assets and the oil price cap, the Coalition has deprived Russia of more than $500 billion it could have directed toward the war effort. Estimates suggest that had Russia not launched its aggression in 2014, its economy could have been nearly 20 percent larger today. The EU’s 17 sanctions packages have targeted everything from banking to technology to Russia’s shadow oil fleet.
But Russia has adapted. Russia’s economy has largely withstood sanctions to date, though economic pressures are building. Moscow found ways around the G7 price cap, including by enlisting a shadow fleet of tankers and shifting exports to China and India. China’s seaborne imports of Russian Urals crude doubled in January 2026, reaching their highest monthly volumes ever.+2
The real squeeze is showing up inside Russia’s budget. Nearly 40 percent of all federal spending is now allocated to defense and security — an unprecedented level in modern Russian history. After two years of expansion above 4 percent, GDP growth for 2025 slowed to around 1 percent or lower, with the same headwinds likely to persist into 2026. To cover the shortfall, the VAT rate jumped from 20 to 22 percent on January 1, effectively asking ordinary Russians to bankroll the war with every purchase. Social spending has fallen from 38 percent to 25 percent of the budget, while economic support dropped to 10.9 percent — the lowest levels in at least 20 years.
The Clock Nobody Can Read
The central question — which side runs out of resources first — remains unanswered. As Finland’s central bank bluntly assessed: “Political will, not lack of money, will be the factor that ends this war”. The EU’s combined GDP dwarfs Russia’s, and even a modest reallocation of European defense spending could dramatically shift the balance. But political fatigue is real. European leaders arrived in Kyiv for the anniversary without two deals they had hoped to present — a new sanctions package and a €90 billion defense loan — both blocked by Hungary.
For Ukrainians, the math is existential. More than 3,200 children have been killed or injured since February 2022, with child casualties increasing by 10 percent in 2025 — the third consecutive annual rise. Reconstruction and recovery will cost almost $588 billion over the next decade, nearly three times the country’s estimated 2025 GDP. The European Commission raised the Ukrainian flag over its Brussels headquarters on the anniversary. Kyiv would prefer it raised Patriot batteries instead.
The message from Ukraine’s parliament, its president, and its people has not changed in four years: arms, not words. Air defense, not applause. Sanctions that strangle, not slow. Whether Europe and its allies can sustain the political will to match that demand will determine not just Ukraine’s future, but the shape of European security for a generation.
Original analysis inspired by Kira Rudik from Kyiv Post. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
