EU Loan Aims To Keep Ukraine War Going Until 2029

Funding two-thirds of the Ukrainian budget for the next two years, per the EU's stated goal, would likely lead to another two-year round being agreed to encourage the US to continue its military aid.

Since last summer, the US no longer donates arms to Ukraine but instead sells them to NATO, which then transfers them there. Even if US President Donald Trump suspends these sales, so long as the Ukrainian budget is financed and nothing major changes, Ukraine might hold out long enough for him to change his mind again.

To be sure, Ukraine cannot fight indefinitely. Even President Volodymyr Zelensky's new Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov recently acknowledged that it faces“a huge, huge problem,” after new Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said that more than 2 million Ukrainians are dodging the draft, seriously complicating operations at the front.

There is also the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin will convert the“special military operation” into a formal war, in which he would no longer avoid civilian casualties in an attempt to end the conflict decisively on Russia's terms.

Two competing schools of thought exist regarding why he has not yet done so. One holds that he does not want to inadvertently risk escalation with the US that could spiral into World War III.

Another suggests he still genuinely considers Russians and Ukrainians to be one people, as he argued at length in a summer 2021 essay, and is therefore reluctant to see their civilians suffer.

In any case, the forever war scenario assumes Putin will not take that step - an assumption that cannot be taken for granted.

Nevertheless, the EU operates under the assumption that he will not, which explains why it plans to move swiftly to approve Ukraine's 90 billion euro loan and continues to buy arms from the US for transfer to Ukraine.