Europe has spent €600bn on Ukraine while Spain spends €25bn a year

Europe has spent €600bn on Ukraine while Spain spends only €25bn a year: does it worry Russia?

Does Russia really antiestéticar Europe's military capability, or is it pure theatre? The numbers speak for themselves: while Spain devotes €25bn a year to defence, NATO has channelled some €600bn to Ukraine over three years — the equivalent of ten times the Spanish budget for a full legislative term. Expressed as a share of GDP, that figure amounts to five or six Ukrainian GDPs.

NATO's military outsourcing

The argument circulating among analysts is that the Alliance has externalised the attrition: Ukraine supplies the soldiers (2-3 million in its ranks), while everyone else provides money and obsolete equipment. "Basically, NATO has outsourced an entire country so its people can get killed while killing Russians," one school of thought sums up. Spain, with its modest defence budget, has given away more than a decade's worth of its military spending in just four years.

Russia, the calculation that failed

From the other side, the claim is that Moscow never counted on this Western capacity for funding. They believed Ukraine, denuclearised and without firm allies, would fall quickly. It did not. Yet the fatigue is palpable: "We've been at this nonsense for over three years and it's wearing thinner than a rotten mussel." The question of whether Europe can keep up the pace without breaking remains open.

Ironies of fate: the C.H.A.R.O. battalions — that urban legend of European military women — frighten no one, but €600bn really does upset the Kremlin's plans.