The EU's drip-feed of aid frustrates Ukraine, despite the promise of membership talks

BRUSSELS — Drop by drop, Ukraine is being supplied with aid and arms from its European allies, at a time when it becomes ever clearer it would take a deluge to turn its war against Russia around.

On Friday, EU leaders sought to paper over their inability to boost Ukraine's coffers with a promised 50 billion euros ($54.5 billion) over the next four years, saying the check will likely arrive next month after some more haggling between 26 leaders and the longtime holdout, Viktor Orban of Hungary.

Instead, they wanted Ukraine to revel in getting the nod to start membership talks that could mark a sea change in its fortunes — never mind that the process could last well over a decade and be strewn with obstacles from any single member state.

“Today, we are celebrating,” said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.

Ukrainian government bookkeepers are unlikely to join in. Kyiv is struggling to make ends meet from one month to the next and to make sure enough is left to bolster defenses and even attempt a counterattack to kick the Russians out of the country.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is traveling the world — Argentina, United States, Norway and Germany in just the past week — to make sure the money keeps flowing.

After the close of the summit on Friday, the most the EU could guarantee was that funds would continue to arrive in Kyiv in monthly drips of 1.5 billion euros at least until early next year.

Orban, the lone EU leader with continuing close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, claims war funding for Ukraine is like throwing money out of the window since victory on the battlefield is a pipe dream.

“We shouldn’t send more money to finance the war. Instead, we should stop the war and have a cease-fire and peace talks," he said Friday, words that are anathema in most other EU nations.

Since the start of the war in February 2022, the EU and its 27 member states have sent $91 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance.

All the other leaders except Hungary, however, said they would work together over the next weeks to get a package ready that would either get approval from Orban or be approved by sidestepping him in a complicated institutional procedure.

“I can assure you that Ukraine will not be left without support. There was a strong will of 26 to provide this support. And there were different ways how we can do this," said Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. A new summit to address that is set for late January or early February.

In the meantime, Ukraine will have to warm itself by the glow from the promise of opening membership talks, announced on Thursday.

“It will lift hearts,” said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, “where there are people tonight in bomb shelters and tomorrow morning defending their homes, this will give them a lot of hope."