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RMIT ABC Fact Check

Anthony Albanese says Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor to Ukraine. Is that correct?

Anthony Albanese NATO Ukraine Australia Fact Check nonNATO Matw Sussex RMIT ABC Fact Check Russia Sky News

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor to Ukraine. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

The claim

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine reached its fourth month, the country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, urged the international community to do more to support Ukraine.

During a visit to the capital Kyiv, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese answered these calls promising further military aid and imposing sanctions and travel bans on more Russian companies and individuals.

Speaking to Sky News on July 7 upon returning to Australia, Mr Albanese said Australia had been "the largest non-NATO contributor" to Ukraine.

What does the available data show?

RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.

The verdict

Mr Albanese's claim doesn't stack up.

Experts told Fact Check comparisons of contributions to Ukraine were complicated by a lack of complete data, varied definitions of what constitutes a "contribution" and difficulties in making direct comparisons between countries.

The best available data breaks down single-country donations on the basis of humanitarian, financial and military aid, and also quantifies joint donations from members of the European Union made via multilateral funds.

When the euro value of these types of aid is combined, Australia's ranks sixth of the 14 non-NATO donors in the data set.

Measured as a proportion of GDP, Australia slips to seventh.

Looking at individual metrics, Australia's ranking ranges from first (for the euro value of bilateral military aid) to equal last (for giving no financial aid).

But when calculated as a proportion of GDP, Sweden's bilateral military aid alone is more than two times larger than Australia's.

In addition, counting only bilateral military aid excludes multilateral contributions made by non-NATO members such as Sweden to Ukraine's military via the EU.

Even if only accounting for bilateral contributions, experts questioned the value of comparing military aid alone when a non-NATO donor such as Japan — which has constitutional constraints on military spending — gave almost three times as much as Australia but chiefly in the form of financial aid.

There are other factors such as economic sanctions and the cost of hosting refugees that could be considered a "contribution". However, these forms of support are not readily quantifiable and therefore difficult to compare internationally.

There are a number of ways to measure "contributions" to Ukraine, but in most of them, there are other non-NATO countries ahead of Australia. (Reuters: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service)

What does it mean to 'contribute'?

Contributions to the war effort of another country can include sending troops, donating military equipment, giving cash, providing humanitarian aid in the region, accepting refugees in Australia, buying more imports, imposing sanctions on the enemy, or supporting international legal action, to name just some.

Mr Albanese repeated his claim at least five times in the span of three weeks, on some occasions offering more qualification than others.

In the July 7 Sky News interview, he simply said: "Australia has been the largest non-NATO contributor."

He made similar open-ended comments on July 5 and June 17.

A July 4 media release announcing additional aid was more detailed, listing six types of assistance: supply of military equipment; cash to upgrade border controls; duty free access for Ukrainian imports to Australia; intervention at the International Court of Justice; financial sanctions against Russian "ministers and oligarchs"; and a prohibition on imports of Russian gold.

At the end of this list, Mr Albanese said: "Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor to Ukraine in the defence of their homeland."

On July 1, he also referred to humanitarian aid. "We're of course the largest non-NATO contributor to the effort of protecting the sovereignty of Ukraine and standing with the Ukrainian people and their struggle against Russia's aggression and illegal war. And $285 million of military support so far; $65 million in humanitarian support I think is something that Australians can be proud of."

Military aid is not the only way governments are making a contribution to Ukraine. (Reuters: Gleb Garanich)

Assessing the claim

Data is available for some of these efforts, namely, financial, military and humanitarian aid.

However, quantifiable data comparing economic sanctions on Russia or the impact of hosting refugees is not readily available.

In any case, when it comes to these actions, experts contacted by Fact Check had differing views on whether they should be strictly considered as "contributions".

Can sanctions on Russia be considered a "contribution" to Ukraine? (Reuters: Tom Brenner)

Senior lecturer at the Department of Government and International Relations and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Gorana Grgić, said both economic sanctions and the costs associated with hosting refugees could be interpreted as a contribution.

But senior fellow at the Australian National University's Centre for Defence Research and Associate Professor at the Griffith Asia Institute Matthew Sussex, said these actions did not necessarily represent direct contributions to Ukraine.

For example, when it came to sanctions, he told Fact Check: "I'm not sure economic sanctions are necessarily a 'contribution' since they don't help Ukraine directly. Rather, they're a punitive measure designed to impose costs on the Russian economy."

Dr Grgić observed that there is also the question of whether only those contributions that have been received by Ukraine, as opposed to those promised, should be counted.

Due to the numerous ambiguities, Dr Sussex told Fact Check any comparison on relative terms was "very difficult" and was "always pretty artificial".

Who are the NATO members?

If Sweden and Finland were to join NATO it would bring the total number of countries in the alliance to 32. (Reuters: Ints Kalnins)

Mr Albanese specifically referred to Australia as the lead contributor to Ukraine amongst "non-NATO" donors.

There are currently 30 members of NATO, including many (but not all) European nations, Türkiye, the UK, Canada and the USA.

NATO member nations as of July 2022

Country	Year joined
Belgium	1949
Canada	1949
Denmark	1949
France	1949
Iceland	1949
Italy	1949
Luxembourg	1949
Netherlands	1949
Norway	1949
Portugal	1949
The United Kingdom	1949
The United States	1949
Greece	1952
Türkiye	1952
Germany	1955
Spain	1982
Czech Republic	1999
Hungary	1999
Poland	1999
Bulgaria	2004
Estonia	2004
Latvia	2004
Lithuania	2004
Romania	2004
Slovakia	2004
Slovenia	2004
Albania	2009
Croatia	2009
Montenegro	2017
North Macedonia	2020

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, NATO announced on July 4 that Sweden and Finland had completed "accession talks" with an intention for both nations to join NATO.

However, at the time of the claim, neither nation had yet signed NATO's Washington Treaty at which point they would become members.

What comparative data is available?

Experts contacted by Fact Check said there was no perfect data source when it came to comparing contributions to Ukraine.

As head of European economics and former chief economist for Russia at Morgan Stanley Jacob Nell observed, comparing data on contributions relies on reporting by governments, not all of which is public.

However, Dr Sussex told Fact Check the Ukraine Support Tracker, compiled by a government-funded German research organisation the Kiel Institute, was the best available data set when it came to tracking the relative contributions to Ukraine.

As the Kiel Institute's website explains, the tracker reports on aid promised by 40 donor governments using official statements and its own calculations based on market prices as its source material.

It does not comprehensively track the delivery of these pledges, citing "scarce" information.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced additional support for Ukraine during his visit to the country, but this support is not yet captured in the available data. (AP: Nariman El-Mofty)

In its main dataset, the tracker details bilateral, or government-to-government, commitments as well as multilateral contributions made via the European Union. It lists the following countries that are members of the EU but not of NATO: Austria; Cyprus; Finland; Ireland; Malta; and Sweden.

Bilateral commitments are divided into three categories: military aid; financial aid; and humanitarian aid.

As a working paper published by the Kiel Institute explains, multilateral EU contributions are comprised of aid delivered via the European Commission and Council as well as two foreign assistance mechanisms: the European Peace Facility which funds lethal and non-lethal equipment to the Ukrainian military; and the Macro-Financial Assistance programme which provides concessional loans and grants to Ukraine.

Researcher at the Kiel Institute André Frank told Fact Check in an email that the tracker does not represent an exhaustive list of all donors that had provided support.

"We are aware that there are bilateral donor countries that are not yet in our dataset," he said.

Nevertheless, it represented the most comprehensive data set available, Dr Sussex said.

This data is available between January 24 — a month prior to Russia's invasion — and July 1.

The most recent update was published on July 6, a day before Mr Albanese's claim on Sky News.

Thus, the only data available to assess the claim covers the period to July 1. This excludes the additional amounts contained in Mr Albanese's July 4 announcement.

As outlined above, Mr Albanese made his claim on multiple occasions prior to his announcement of additional support.

Total sum or as a proportion of GDP?

In addition to various types of contributions on which Mr Albanese's claim could be assessed, there are also different ways that quantifiable contributions could be measured, Dr Grgić said.

These included assessing the total sum of contributions or contributions made as a percentage of a nation's GDP.

Dr Sussex said these two approaches would show different things.

"Total support will give you a better picture of sheer volume", he said.

"Aid by GDP shows who is giving the most in relative terms to their capacity to provide it."

What the Ukraine Support Tracker shows

The tracker contains 14 non-NATO donors: Australia; Austria; China; Cyprus; Finland; India; Ireland; Japan; Malta; New Zealand; South Korea; Sweden; Switzerland; and Taiwan.

As the charts below illustrate, depending on which way the data is sliced, Australia's ranking ranges from first to equal last.

The chart below shows that when considered as the total euro value of all bilateral and multilateral aid, Australia's aid commitments to Ukraine totalled 233 million euros as of July 1.

This was the sixth largest commitment of the 14 non-NATO donors falling far behind the largest contributor Sweden which committed 893 million euros and the second largest Japan with 667 million euros.

Measured as a proportion of GDP, Australia's 233 million euro commitment represented 0.019 per cent of its GDP.

On this basis, Australia slips to seventh place amongst the 14 non-NATO contributors.

As a proportion of GDP, Sweden is also the leader with its commitments accounting for 0.174 per cent — more than nine times that of Australia.

Ranked second is Finland with 0.147 per cent and third is Austria with 0.124 per cent of GDP.

By breaking these categories down, the rankings are significantly altered.

For example, If only the total euro value of bilateral aid is accounted for, Japan takes the lead ahead of Sweden and Australia.

Accounting for GDP on the other hand, Sweden comes out ahead with Finland and Australia in second and third.

These categories can be broken down even further, for example, by considering the euro value of bilateral financial aid only where Japan by far leads the pack.

On the same basis, when considered as a proportion of GDP, Japan slips to third place behind Finland and Sweden.

When accounting for bilateral military aid only, Australia takes the top spot narrowly ahead of Sweden.

As a proportion of GDP, however, Australia drops back to second place behind Sweden.

When accounting for the euro value of humanitarian aid, Japan is also the leader ahead of Sweden and Ireland.

On the basis of contributions relative to GDP, Japan's ranking falls to tenth behind Ireland, then Sweden, Austria, Cyprus, Malta, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea and Finland.

As noted earlier, on July 4 Mr Albanese announced additional support worth $108 million Australian dollars which is not yet available in the Kiel Institute's dataset.

This information, as well as other contributions made by other donors since July 1, is due to be updated on the tracker on August 17.

Can Australia really claim the lead by any metric?

On the basis of combined aid reflected in the Ukraine Support Tracker, Australia is nowhere near the "largest non-NATO contributor" as suggested by Mr Albanese.

On the basis of the euro value of bilateral military aid only, the data does show Australia as the leader.

But this metric does not account for military contributions made by EU member donors via their multilateral commitments to Ukraine.

For example, Sweden committed 73 million euros through the European Peace Facility which directly funds military equipment to Ukraine.

Furthermore, Mr Nell warned of a distinct lack of clarity surrounding military aid.

This issue is also identified in the Kiel Institute's working paper.

"We also cannot provide a complete picture of bilateral aid, because some governments do not share details on their support to Ukraine, especially when it comes to sending military equipment and weapons," it reads.

Mr Nell also pointed to issues with the valuation of military equipment.

"The valuation of military assistance is often not clear," he said.

"Old stocks of ammunition may be valued at close to zero on your books but be very valuable to the Ukrainians in the fight."

Dr Sussex agreed, noting difficulties in comparing the value of different kinds of weapons systems.

Furthermore, eight of the 14 non-NATO donors in the data set provided no military aid.

Dr Sussex pointed out this was in part because "different states have differing abilities (and different political sensitivities) relating to giving different things".

"Japan is constitutionally restricted to spending one per cent of GDP on defence as a result of its peace constitution."

According to the Kiel Institute's data, Japan made no contributions on the basis of military support, but was the lead contributor on the basis of euro value of financial contributions and second behind Finland for financial contributions as a proportion of its GDP.

Australia provided no financial contributions.

Dr Sussex noted these differences in context and capacity highlighted the challenge in making direct comparisons between the contributions of nations rendering them "artificial" in nature.

Other forms of support for Ukraine

Providing asylum to refugees can be counted as a contribution, but it's difficult to quantify. (AP: Balazs Kaufmann)

Dr Grgić told Fact Check other forms of support, for example, sanctions and hosting displaced Ukrainians fleeing violence could be considered "contributions".

However, she noted that numerous complexities prevented meaningful comparisons.

For example, when it came to sanctions, Mr Nell said Australia was a leader in terms of its response to imposing sanctions on Russian individuals.

"[Australia] was the first and in some cases still the only country to sanction a number of leading oligarchs and officials," he said.

But economic sanctions on the other hand were reliant on trade with Russia — of which Australia had very little.

"The impact and value of sanctions depend on the level of existing trade and investment with Russia," he said.

"US and EU sanctions pack the bigger punch, as the key global economic power and Russia's largest trading partner, respectively."

The pain inflicted on the country imposing a sanction was also relative to varied circumstances, Mr Nell added.

The prime example was European sanctions on Russian oil, he said.

While Europe imports 29 per cent of its oil from Russia, Australia does not, mostly importing oil from South East and North Asia. Thus, comparing relative contributions on this basis would be fraught.

Similar challenges are present when attempting to compare the costs associated with hosting refugees.

According to the Department of Home Affairs, as of June 30, Australia had issued over 8,600 visas to Ukrainian nationals since Russia's invasion, 3,800 of whom had arrived in Australia.

While the United Nations provides estimates on the number of Ukrainian refugees hosted by various countries, Australia's efforts are not yet included in this database.

Furthermore, as experts previously explained to Fact Check, international comparisons of the generosity of refugee intakes are problematic.

That's because in some countries refugee recognition may mean high levels of protection, services and rights; in others, it can mean little beyond the most basic, temporary asylum.

Principal researcher: Sonam Thomas

Sources

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