United States arms exports to Europe have more than tripled on aid for Ukraine and as European countries boosted weapons buying in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to an analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Shipments of U.S. weapons to Europe rose 233% in the 2020-2024 time frame from the prior five-year period, according to a March 10 report by the Swedish think tank. For the first time in two decades, Europe accounted for the largest share of U.S. arms exports, SIPRI said.

Russia’s aggression has caused upheaval in the international arms market, with the U.S. solidifying its position as the world’s largest weapons exporter, as European countries multiplied orders to rebuild hollowed-out armed forces.

Meanwhile, Russian arms exports have plunged.

“The new arms transfers figures clearly reflect the rearmament taking place among states in Europe in response to the threat from Russia,” said Mathew George, program director with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

European NATO members more than doubled their arms imports between 2015-2019 and 2020-2024, with the U.S. supplying 64% of those imports in the most recent period, compared with 52% in the prior five years, according to the report. France and South Korea were the other two main suppliers to European NATO members, each accounting for 6.5% of imports.

Europe accounted for 35% of U.S. arms exports, overtaking the Middle East, even if Saudi Arabia remained the largest single recipient of U.S. weapons.

“The USA is in a unique position when it comes to arms exports,” George said. “The USA continues to be the supplier of choice for advanced long-range strike capabilities like combat aircraft.” European NATO countries had 472 combat aircraft on order from the U.S. by the end of 2024, according to SIPRI.

The U.S. accounted for 43% of global arms exports, with Saudi Arabia accounting for a 12% share, followed by Ukraine and Japan as the biggest recipients. The U.S. is the main supplier of long-range land attack missiles with a range of more than 250 kilometers, accounting for 45% of exports in that category.

Ukraine, the U.K., the Netherlands and Norway were among the ten largest recipients of American arms in the five years through 2024. Ukraine accounted for 26% of U.S. exports to Europe, and 71% of those transfers were second-hand arms taken from stocks for quick delivery, according to SIPRI.

An increasingly belligerent Russia and stress on transatlantic relations during the first presidency of Donald Trump means European NATO states have taken steps to reduce their dependency on arms imports, according to Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

Of more than $180 billion in defense equipment contracts signed by European NATO countries between February 2022 and September 2024, at least 52% was spent on European systems and 34% on U.S. systems, according to estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies published in October.

France was the second-biggest exporter in the 2020-2024 period, with a 9.6% share of global arms shipments, led by India, Qatar and Egypt, all buyers of the country’s Rafale fighter jet.

Russia ranked third in weapon exports in 2020-2024, with India, China and Kazakhstan its biggest customers. The country accounted for 7.8% of global arms exports in the period, a little over one-third of the share it held in the five years through to 2019.

“The war against Ukraine has further accelerated the drop in Russia’s arms exports because more weapons are needed on the battlefield, trade sanctions make it harder for Russia to produce and sell its weapons, and the USA and its allies pressure states not to buy Russian arms,” said Wezeman.

The U.S. had outstanding orders for 996 combat aircraft for delivery after 2024, followed by France with 214 aircraft, South Korea with 140 and Russia with 71 combat aircraft, according to SIPRI. The researchers said order data can give “a rough indication” of which countries will be the top exporters in coming years, with combat aircraft and major warships particularly telling due to their high value.

The U.K., the seventh-biggest arms exporter in the period, has 29 major warships on order, followed by Germany with 26 and France with 22 warships, according to the SIPRI data.

Ukraine became the largest weapons importer in the 2020-2024 period. The U.S. accounted for 45% of arms shipped to the country, followed by Germany with 12% and Poland with 11%.

India was the second-biggest importer in the most recent period, with Russia and France its biggest suppliers, with Qatar the third-largest buyer in the international weapons market, and with the U.S. its biggest supplier.

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As arms imports spike, Ukraine boosts domestic weapon production

Ukraine emerged as the largest importer of major arms globally between 2020 and 2024, with purchases increasing nearly a hundredfold compared to the previous five-year period, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported on Monday.

At the same time, Ukraine has significantly ramped up its domestic weapon production since 2022, a direct response to Russia's all-out invasion in February of that year.

Around 35% of all weapons needed reportedly are now produced locally, compared to less than 10% at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Europe currently supplies around 30% of Ukraine’s military needs, while the US provides another 40%.

Yet, Ukraine can self-produce even more, Ukraine's Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin told Euronews.

“Up to 40% of weapons used at the frontlines are made in Ukraine. It is almost a half and we can produce even more, we just need funding,” Smetanin said.

Approximately 500 arms producers are operating in Ukraine, collectively employing nearly 300,000 people. Smetanin says all of them are ready and capable of increasing output and production, but they lack money and commitment to long-term funding.

Understandable, he says, as he points out that "not a single country would be able to be fully self-sufficient given the intensity of Russia’s war against Ukraine."

“We have financial constraints, and Russia does have those too. But they have a different level and size of economy. They can afford a little more than we can,” Smetanin added.

After Smetanin's interview with Euronews, Ukraine opened private companies' access to defence technologies that are owned by the state.

If a state customer in the field of defence procurement requires weapons in volumes that exceed the capabilities of state-owned enterprises, at the initiative of the Ministry of Defence, the design documentation may be transferred to other manufacturers, including private ones, according to new rules.

The main achievement of Ukraine is different, however, Smetanin said.

Ukraine’s main weapon

"We have a new generation of weapons constructors and developers," Smetanin said, adding that thanks to them, Ukraine is "becoming stronger in the world thanks to the technologies we have."

“Look at deepstrike drones, first-person-view drones, other technologies. Who is creating all this? Young people, young engineers, postgraduates and graduates of our Ukrainian universities. A new generation of young people is emerging who are capable of further developing this country in five or ten years,” he illustrated.

And thanks to them, Ukraine is changing the approach and proves to the world that the world can learn a thing or two from Ukraine, Smetanin proudly added.

“Now more and more foreigners are coming, they see that we have such a production facility, they are very interested and ask how much does it cost? And they want our technologies because it is 10 times cheaper in Ukraine and because everything has already been developed and tested, so they wouldn’t need to wait for years,” he said.

Ukraine is now waiting for the most complicated weapons of its own make — missiles, specifically air defence ones, which the country did not produce before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“We had one missile, an anti-ship missile. We produced only dozens of them. And we actually spent 10 years developing this missile,” Smetanin recalled.

Three years into the full-scale invasion, Ukraine "now already has its own home made missiles," according to him.

In December, Ukraine unveiled a new domestically produced missile drone dubbed the “Peklo” (meaning "Hell" in Ukrainian). This latest addition to the country’s arsenal has a reported range of 700 kilometres and can reach speeds up to 700km/h.

By the end of 2024, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that the serial production of the long-range Palyanytsia missile drone was underway, with trials of the new Ruta missile ongoing.

Also a new long-range version of Ukraine’s domestically produced Neptune cruise missile is expected to become operational in the near future.

The Neptune is currently best known as the weapon used to sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moskva, during the initial months of the Russian invasion in spring 2022.

Patriot on pause

Smetanin remained very tight-lipped on any other projects Ukraine has been working on amid its missile production programme, saying only that due to the unfortunate circumstances, Ukraine had to push harder to develop its defence industry and can already now produce arms together with European manufacturers.

“Now the company that produces NASAMS is thinking about integrating the Ukrainian rocket into its complex," he said.

NASAMS, aka Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, is a European-made mobile air defence system capable of launching 72 missiles in just 12 seconds. It is used to intercept aircraft, helicopters, and cruise missiles within a range of up to 40 kilometres.

But when it comes to protecting itself against Russia’s most powerful ballistic missiles, Ukraine only has the US-made Patriot defence systems. And with Washington now pausing its military shipments to Kyiv, they could soon run out of ammunition.

“This is the US licence and nothing can be done without their approval. This is the most complicated and the most concerning item in terms of Ukraine’s dependence,” Smetanin concluded.

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France remains world's second largest arms exporter behind US

French truck-mounted Ceasar howitzer.

The United States maintains its position as world's number one arms exporter, followed by France, according to a report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on Monday. It also showed that Ukraine became the world's largest importer in the period 2020-2024.

The findings by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) coincide with an announcement by European Union states that they intend to strengthen the continent's defence capabilities.

This comes after US President Donald Trump said Europe should become less dependent on the US.

The report published on Monday found that the United States strengthened its position as the world's top weapons exporter with some 43 percent of global exports and France confirmed a distant second place with 9.6 percent.

"France has now cemented its place as the second largest exporter vis-a-vis Russia, which was at that position some time ago," Mathew George, director of Sipri's Arms Transfer Programme told RFI.

France is also "making those inroads into different areas with exports to Asia and the Middle East," he says. "So it's really growing."

Arms embargoes

According to Sipri's report which covers 2020 - 2024, Ukraine became the world's largest arms importer with a growth of "9.627 percent more than the previous period", which is "mind-boggling," George says.

But figures are hard to come by due to arms embargoes on the three countries, George explains.

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Trump said Russia had ‘all the cards,’ but this ceasefire proposal just called Putin’s bluff

With Ukraine signed up to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire, the pressure is now on the Kremlin to decide whether it too will accept President Donald Trump’s plan to bring the Ukraine war to a halt, albeit a temporary one.

Russian officials are hinting at contacts with US representatives “in the next few days” but have not said whether the terms of the ceasefire, as set out at the US-Ukrainian talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, would be acceptable.

For Moscow, this is a moment of truth and one which may require awkward compromises if it is serious about peace.

The Kremlin has long claimed to be open to negotiations to end the conflict, while insisting it must achieve its ambitious war aims, such as securing control over all annexed areas of Ukraine.

Only last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin strongman who launched this brutal war three years ago, vowed to a group of tearful widows and mothers of killed Russian soldiers that Moscow would never “give in”.

Pro-war Russian hardliners, at times encouraged by the Kremlin, may see a ceasefire as a betrayal.

But a climbdown of some sort may be inevitable.

Even if Russian negotiators can impose their own conditions on the ceasefire – a Ukrainian withdrawal from Kursk, for example, the small pocket of Russia captured by Ukraine, where fighting is now raging – it is hard to imagine its greater territorial demands, yet alone the goal of removing NATO from its western flank, would be met.

This may also become a decisive crossroads in Putin’s oddly warm relationship with Trump who, in exchange for recent concessions and praise, may now expect the Kremlin leader to play ball.

Indeed, “the ball is now in their court,” is precisely what the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the Russians after his talks with Ukrainian officials concluded in Jeddah.

Just days ago, Trump claimed the Russians had “all the cards.” Now, intentionally or not, he may have called Putin’s bluff.

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