November 3, 2024: Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States has provided Ukraine with over $175 billion in military and economic aid. This is for a country whose pre-war, 2021, GDP was $200 billion. For 2024 GDP is expected to be $189 billion. After two years of war, the 2023 GDP was $179 billion. In Ukraine NATO military and economic aid continues to flow into Ukraine, with the Americans still supplying most of it. European NATO countries are supplying most of the economic aid to Ukraine and planning to be the major supplier of economic investments in Ukraine after the war. Ukraine is potentially a major European economy, second only to Poland in terms of population and GDP. A decade of war has kept Ukrainian GDP at a quarter of Poland’s. Given a decade of peace, Ukraine could match Poland’s GDP and together with Poland become the main NATO bulwark against potential Russian future aggression.

The American and NATO military aid supplied over 100,000 anti-tank weapons plus even more missiles and rockets for use against ground and air targets. Early in the war, before Ukraine became a major manufacturer of drones, the United States was their major supplier. The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with multiple types of military equipment. Many of these items were those that Russia could not match.

All this aid enabled Ukraine to quickly and effectively deal with the Russian invasion. The invasion was destructive but only in a few parts of the country. Most of Ukraine has been untouched by war, except for local men who joined the military and were killed or injured fighting the Russians. With Ukraine now on the offensive, the government is asking the millions of Ukrainians who fled to Europe during the war, to return home and help solve the labor shortage.

Since 2014 Russia has occupied three Ukrainian provinces; Crimean, Luhansk and Donetsk. In the early stages of the invasion Russia grabbed more Ukrainian territory. By 2023 Ukraine was on the offensive and Russia was losing a lot of occupied territory and unable to halt the Ukrainian advance. Russian personnel losses were so great that in late 2024 Russia obtained 12,000 soldiers from North Korea. For most of the war, North Korea has been a major supplier of old Soviet-style weapons for Russia. These were paid for with cash and food. Since the 1990s North Korea has had a difficult time feeding its population. North Korean agriculture suffers from an unending series of catastrophes and shortages. Then Russia came along looking for some help in Ukraine. North Korea was eager to oblige. In addition to billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, North Korea sent 12,000 soldiers.

Payments to North Korea and Iran, who supplied weapons too, rapidly drained Russian financial reserves. Three years of war in Ukraine and several rounds of economic sanctions was the price Russia had to pay for its war in Ukraine. The Russian economy depends on continued oil exports and these are constantly under attack by the major nations maintaining the sanctions. As the war goes on Russia receives less and less for the oil it smuggles out past the sanctions. The Americans have taken the lead in maintaining the sanctions and have been successful at it. The result is that the Russian economy is a wreck and will take a decade to rebuild and repair the damage once the war is over.

North Korea has been under sanctions for decades. Even without sanctions the dictatorship that has ruled North Korea for 71 years has mismanaged the economy to the point where they had an economy that was only five percent the size (in GDP per capita) of South Korea. Free market, democratic South Korea has created one of the top ten economies on the planet. In response to North Korean aid for Russia, South Korea announced plans to supply military aid to Ukraine. South Korea currently has the tenth largest GDP in the world and is a major manufacturer and exporter of modern weapons. Poland is a customer, spending nearly $15 billion on weapons, including a thousand K2 tanks. These are similar to the American M1 but designed and built in South Korea without any use of American parts or technology. This means South Korea can export the K2s to anyone. Before the Ukraine War, South Korea and Russia were major trading partners. That ended when the war began and now South Korea is threatening to not revive that trade after the Ukraine war is over.