Brussels planned Ukraine's money on the hope the war would end in 2026. It didn't, and now there's a €70bn hole with your name on it.

Every budget rests on an assumption. The European Union's €90 billion loan to Ukraine for 2026 and 2027 rested on a big one: that the war would be over some time in 2026.

That is not this newspaper's reading. It is how Euronews describes the Commission's planning. The money was sized to cover two thirds of Ukraine's needs over two years, with allies outside the bloc picking up the rest. Then Russia did not stop. It intensified its attacks on Ukraine's economy and energy grid, and Kyiv's bill went up.

Now Brussels has accepted Kyiv's estimate: Ukraine needs roughly another €70 billion in 2027, on top of the €45 billion the EU already plans to pay out next year. And in an interview published on Friday, 23 October, the President of the European Council, António Costa, told Rapporteur who he expects to carry most of it. "Normally we cover two thirds of the financial needs of Ukraine," he said. Two thirds of €70 billion is about €46.7 billion.

This is not an argument against helping Ukraine. A Russian victory would cost Europe far more than any loan. It is an argument against the way Brussels keeps telling Europeans what that help costs.

A loan that works like a grant

Start with the word "loan". Under the regulation behind the €90 billion, the EU raises the money on the capital markets, backed by the headroom in its own budget, and the budget picks up the borrowing costs. Ukraine is expected to repay only once Russia pays it reparations.

Ask yourself how likely it is that the Kremlin will one day write that cheque. Then ask who is paying the interest in the meantime. The answer is the EU budget, which is to say national treasuries, which is to say you.

There may be good reasons to fund Ukraine this way. Kyiv cannot service more debt in the middle of a war, and many member states would pay more to borrow on their own. But a scheme whose repayment depends on Moscow's goodwill is, for any practical household purpose, a grant with a lender's paperwork. Calling it a loan lets governments tell voters the money is coming back. Most of them suspect it isn't, and they are probably right.

"A joint effort" means: we hope someone else pays

The second fiction is burden-sharing. Brussels has been quick to stress that the new €70 billion must be "a joint effort". A Commission spokesperson put it bluntly on 19 October: "We cannot manage this on our own. Therefore, our partners as a whole need to step up," as LIGA.net reported.

Fair enough. But the last split already failed. The non-EU third of Ukraine's needs has been secured for 2026, not for 2027, according to EUobserver. Costa told MEPs on 21 October that EU countries already provide 80% of Ukraine's external aid. The EU is now lobbying Britain, Canada, Japan, Norway and others to give more, with summits with Canada and the UK on the calendar. Australia, according to Kyiv Post, said it had not even received a request for 2027.

Notice the absent name. Washington, once Ukraine's largest backer, is busy brokering talks with Moscow. When the EU says "partners", it means a short list of middle powers being asked politely to chip in, while the bulk of the bill stays where it always ends up: with European taxpayers.

Who is in, who is out

The third problem is unity, or the lack of it. Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Bulgaria have said they will neither take part in a new loan nor block the others from going ahead, Rapporteur reports. Belgium's Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, has again ruled out using the immobilised Russian central-bank assets held in his country, the option that would have shifted the bill to Moscow. Germany's Friedrich Merz, usually the guardian of fiscal orthodoxy, has not ruled out fresh common borrowing.

So the likely answer is more joint EU debt, raised by a shrinking group of willing countries, to cover a war that the previous plan assumed would be over. Leaders are due to discuss it at a special summit on 26 and 27 November, with 17 and 18 December as the fallback. That December summit is also where they hope to settle the EU's next long-term budget. Expect the two to be stitched together late at night, in a package nobody outside the room can audit.

What honesty would look like

A serious, centre-right case for Ukraine runs like this. Europe's security depends on Russia failing. That costs money, a great deal of it, for years. Governments should say so plainly, put the sums in their national budgets where parliaments can vote on them, and stop pretending that a loan repayable by Vladimir Putin is a financial asset.

It also means asking harder questions about value. Kyiv still has to deliver anti-corruption reforms to unlock parts of the existing loan; Costa told MEPs that €17 billion more could flow once they are in place. That conditionality is not cruelty. It is the minimum taxpayers are owed.

What Europe is doing instead is the opposite: optimistic forecasts, off-budget borrowing, burden-sharing that exists mainly in press releases, and a fresh bill that lands two months before Christmas. The €70 billion is real. The accounting around it is not.