Cracks in Euro-American support for Ukraine are helping to breathe life into Russia’s war effort. But there is no need for Ukraine’s supporters in the West to press the panic button. There is an efficient and relatively quick fix for the current arms supply difficulties.
In what has evolved into a war of attrition, Russian leader Vladimir Putin appears to be succeeding in wearing down the European Union’s and United States’ will to keep on bankrolling the Ukrainian military. The EU announced in early 2024 that it could not fulfill its promise to deliver one million artillery rounds to Ukraine this spring. Meanwhile, US assistance to Kyiv remains stymied by Republicans in the US Congress.
Some EU member states, led by the Czech Republic, are tired of Brussels’ inability to fulfill its arms supply promises, and have taken matters into their own hands. On April 16, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced a Czech-led fundraising campaign had raise enough money to supply Ukraine with 500,000 rounds. “We believe that more deliveries will follow,” Fiala said when announcing the initiative.
Such panhandling will not supply a long-term fix for what is shaping up as a protracted war. A more practical and stable solution is available, one much closer to home, and one that can operate within an existing political framework. Washington and Brussels should empower a bloc within the EU, known as the Bucharest Nine, or B9, to take the lead on logistics and supply. Doing so could eliminate many of the existing bottlenecks in equipping Ukraine with the arms and munitions it needs to blunt Russia’s human wave assault tactics.
The B9 comprises Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Baltic states – all of them countries that endured decades of Moscow-imposed communism during the 20th century. Since Putin made his first move against Ukraine, occupying the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, B9 states, especially Poland and the Baltics, have been the most clear-eyed in evaluating Moscow’s methods and intentions. Indeed, the B9 came together in 2015 in a direct response to the threat posed by Russian aggression. Since then, under the leadership of Polish President Andrzej Duda and Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis, the B9 has succeeded in shifting the strategic focus of both the EU and NATO eastward.
Interestingly, the B9 grouping aligns almost exactly with the Intermarium Concept, a collective security initiative advocated in the 1920s by then-Polish leader Józef Piłsudski to contain Russian/Bolshevik expansionism.
The B9 has both the desire and the experience to mobilize more efficient support for Ukraine. They still resent the experience of Soviet rule. Even the National Council of Slovakia, whose new prime minister cut off all military aid to Ukraine, went so far as to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Meanwhile, the Baltic states regularly describe the Ukraine war as an “existential” threat to their own security.
These states realize that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will not be content. They see Ukraine as a bulwark against Russian expansionist aggression. The B9 is also a hedge against American foreign policy fickleness. The stark options inherent in the November presidential election mean it is impossible to predict what American foreign policy in 2025 will look like.
An assessment of the B9’s capabilities published in March by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) said “the format has been instrumental for them [member states] to advocate increased defense spending, resilience building, and shaping NATO’s strategic deterrence on its eastern flank.”
“In this perspective, the B9 should continue to prioritize support for Ukraine,” the assessment, titled the Bucharest Nine: Enhancing Security on NATO’s Eastern Flank, recommended.
The B9 is an organization without an institutionalized bureaucracy. This gives it the flexibility to develop faster, more efficient responses than other security-minded organizations in addressing Ukraine-related challenges. “This absence of a dedicated administrative body allows for a more streamlined, almost informal decision-making process,” the GMF report stated. “B9 emphasizes direct communication and interaction between the participating leaders and decision-makers. This approach enables them to address issues promptly and efficiently, without bureaucratic hurdles.”
The B9 states can improve their own security while aiding Ukraine by ramping up their spending on defense to buy new equipment to replenish their own stockpiles. They can then send their current inventories to Ukraine.
Such a policy of “trading up” can help address the EU’s perennial “collective-action problem” in procuring materiel for national defense. The collective-action problem is the principle in political economy that describes how actors can make themselves better off by cooperating but are hindered by individual incentives that obstruct cooperation.
Across the EU, every state has its own defense policy and thus limited market power vis-a-vis suppliers of defense equipment. Accordingly, European arms manufacturers have reduced production capacity in response to decades of haphazard demand and plethora of weapons systems standards. A 2023 report by the EU Parliamentfound that because of the overabundance of weapons systems – the EU has about 150 among its members, while the US uses only 30 – has cost the EU between 25 billion and 100 billion euros. If the B9 pools its spending, it can not only consolidate market share and greatly enhance its market power, but also spur standardization and inter-operability across the EU’s defense sector. Consequently, a stronger, steadier demand from the B9 bloc could reinvigorate European manufacturers to ramp up production.
The B9 states can further defray costs by partnering with defense companies, following Poland’s lead. Last November, Reuters reported that Northrop Grumman had started working in Poland, which leads the EU in defense spending with nearly 4 percent of its GDP going toward defense.
Structural backing for a B9-Ukraine initiative exists in Brussels:in March, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton joined Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at a Polish munitions plant, announcing a one-billion-euro plan to reimburse countries sending artillery ammunition to Ukraine. Critically, Hungarian opposition to aiding Ukraine has ebbed in recent months, opening the way for the B9 to maximize its potential as a vehicle that can get around Ukrainian arms-supply pitfalls.
A B9 supply plan can also potentially assuage the US Congress, held hostage by Republican Party isolationists, widening the path for US approval of Ukraine assistance. Republican opponents of Ukraine aid complain that spending money on Ukraine diverts resources from domestic programs. However, data from the US, Poland, and even Germany demonstrates that domestic munitions factories provide well-paying manufacturing jobs for local populations. Since new orders would go toward domestic defense inventories to replenish munitions going to Ukraine, the B9 can kill two birds with one stone, boosting both domestic economies and the Ukrainian war effort.
Every B9 member state shares the same strategic objectives: shoring up its own economy while supporting Ukraine in the short term and deterring Russian aggression in the long term. Increased spending on defense supports all these objectives, especially if pooled orders lead to larger contracts and lower prices from defense suppliers.
“B9 contributions could play a crucial role in strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities and ensuring the successful provision of Western military support,” according to the GMF assessment. “The war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of a strong defense industry for national and collective security.”
