How it works: one scale for aid, trade and frozen reserves

Each number is a change against what a country would have done without the war, valued at each year's prices, summed from 2022 and set against one year's GDP, with a range, a chance for its direction and its sources.

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Every number measures money: aid to Ukraine and the change in what Russia keeps from trade, against a world without the war. Weapons count at their money value: aid at market value when delivered, weapons and troops sent to Russia at the seller's gain where Russia paid and in full where it did not. Votes, diplomacy and intent are not in it.

The method, page by page

How to read a number
Germany, 2022 to August 2026, in the current build:
Method overview: one scale for every flow
The map gives every country two numbers for 2022 to August 2026, each against what it would have done without the war: support for Ukraine and Russia's earnings from trade (what Russia keeps: taxes and profit above a normal return, not the full price).
Expected without the war: the counterfactual models
Every trade number on the map is a change against what a country would have bought from or sold to Russia and Ukraine if there had been no war.
Prices: volumes, not values, and the war-time windfall
Russian gas cost Hungary 7.6 times its pre-war price in 2022.
Goods trade with Russia and Ukraine
Goods trade is the largest part of the map for most countries: what each country bought from and sold to Russia and Ukraine, 2019 to August 2026.
Energy: transit gas, laundered oil, the energy premium and discount
Fuel is most of what the world buys from Russia, and it is where attribution is hardest: gas crosses several borders before it is burned, oil is refined in India or Türkiye and sold on as diesel, and trading hubs resell fuel to their own customers.
Aid, refugees, military support and flowback
The Ukraine side of the ledger: government aid, each EU member's share of EU-level aid, undisclosed military aid, private donations and the cost of hosting refugees.
Loans: what a loan is really worth
About EUR 96.5bn of the aid in the Kiel tracker is loans and loan guarantees (2022 to August 2026, not counting loans repaid from frozen Russian assets).
Services, shipping and company taxes
Three smaller flows on the Russia side: services traded with Russia (tourism above all), income from shipping and insuring Russian oil, and taxes that foreign-owned companies pay in Russia.
Russia's state finance, arms sales and companies
Money that reaches Russia outside ordinary trade: payments for Russian nuclear projects and Russia's state loans, purchases of Russian weapons, and money moved by companies.
Ranges and certainty letters
Every number on the map has a middle value and a likely range; each part also has a certainty letter from A (reported) to D (rough indication), and each headline number the chance of its direction.
Story tags
Under each country's numbers, a few short tags tell its story in a line each: why Russia's earnings from its trade changed, what it did, and how sure the number is.

Every money flow

Aid to Ukraine	Military, financial and humanitarian aid from governments, with donated weapons at their market value.
Loans and guarantees	Loans count at their gift to Ukraine: the interest it saves and the default risk the lender carries, not the full amount.
Share of EU aid	Aid paid by the EU itself, split over member states by their share of the EU budget.
Undisclosed military aid (estimate)	Military aid that governments did not publish, estimated from policy briefs and national reports.
Private donations	Money given to Ukraine by people and companies, from national donation totals or a model based on GDP.
Hosting refugees	What host governments spent on refugees from Ukraine, minus what donors paid back and the host's gain on refugees' work.
Flowing back from Ukraine	Aid money spent in the giver's own economy, and extra sales to Ukraine, subtracted at the seller's net gain times the share that is genuinely extra.
Payments to Russia for fuel and goods	Oil, gas, coal, LNG and other goods bought from Russia, against the level expected without the war, counted at Russia's net gain. Gas that Russia cut off itself is labelled.
War-time fuel prices	The extra Russia earned because fuel prices rose with the war, at Russia's net gain on that extra price (all of it for oil and pipeline gas, less for LNG and coal).
Refined and laundered Russian oil	Fuel made from Russian crude in other countries, EU refiners included, or passed on by trading hubs, charged to the final buyer, in volumes against its pre-war level.
Energy switching cost and oil discount	Not in the totals or on the map: the extra paid to replace Russian energy, and the discount gained on Russian oil (in the full data download).
Sales to Russia	Goods sold to Russia, counted at the seller's net gain (taxes plus profit above a normal return) times the share that is genuinely extra.
Purchases from Ukraine	Goods bought from Ukraine against the no-war level, counted at Ukraine's net gain.
Services and tourism	Services bought from and sold to Russia, such as transport, business services and tourism.
Shipping Russian oil	Income from shipping and insuring Russian oil, counted for the country that really controls the tankers, at the shippers' and insurers' net gain.
Company taxes in Russia	Taxes that foreign-owned companies still pay in Russia: profit tax plus half of other taxes.
Companies leaving Russia (not in the totals)	The forced discount and the exit fee Russia took from companies that sold their Russian business: not in the totals, shown as a marker.
Company profits in Russia	What owners from this country earned from their companies in Russia, and from stakes in Russian oil and gas projects, against the level expected without the war.
Russian-owned companies abroad	Profits that Russian-owned companies in this country send to their Russian owners.
Russian money frozen	The return Russia lost on its central-bank reserves and on Russian private assets frozen in this country. Not a payment: on its own line, added to the net only, not to Russia's earnings from trade.
Assets seized by Russia (not in the totals)	Company assets Russia seized (temporary management by decree, expropriation, court seizures, leased aircraft kept), at the owners' write-downs, by the company's home country: not in the totals, shown as a marker.
Remittances from Russia (marker)	Shown as a marker, not in the totals: the change in what migrants working in Russia sent home, against the level expected without the war.
Rosatom and Russian state loans	Payments for Russian nuclear projects and repayments of Russian state loans.
Weapons bought from Russia	Payments for Russian weapons, against the level expected without the war, at Russia's net gain.
Weapons and troops sent to Russia	Shells, missiles, drones and troops from North Korea, Iran, Belarus and China: what Russia paid for (also in kind) as a sale, at the seller's net gain; what it did not pay for at market value.
Payment agents	Fees earned by firms that settle Russia's trade payments, at the financial industry's net gain.
Gold and hidden payments to Russia	Gold and other payments that do not show in customs data, at Russia's gain on them.
Labels and counts outside the totals	The critical-goods marker, the sanctions label and counts of volunteers and fighters. They add nothing to the totals.

Also

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Cite as: War Balance, figures to August 2026, https://warbalance.org/how-it-works/