Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his government needs tens of billions of additional dollars to keep fighting and pay bills through the end of the year.
The request couldn't come at a worse time for European governments, the main donors to Kyiv's defense against Russia. European officials privately warn they might not be able to foot the bill for everything Ukraine wants.
Last weekend, the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, stormed to victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections on a platform of ending assistance for Ukraine and restoring energy ties with Moscow.
In France, the leading candidate in next year's presidential race, Marine Le Pen, says Paris can't afford to keep supporting Ukraine. Her National Rally party voted against a big loan the European Union made to Ukraine this spring.
The message from incumbent European leaders is resolute, to a point. They will provide Ukraine the help promised, which includes the $105 billion loan through 2027, but won't commit to give more.
On Sept. 1, Zelensky said that Ukraine has to lock down money for the winter for defense and basic social services. The cash, he said, will "ensure the normal functioning of our state, despite everything."
Ukrainian officials said in early September that they lack funding for $27 billion worth of defense needs through the rest of 2026 and early 2027. Rising war costs, including increased drone demand, additional air-defense funding and salaries for soldiers created the deficit, Ukraine's prime minister said.
Officials say as much as $10 billion of that is needed for advance purchases of weapons for next year and nearly $20 billion for military salaries, payments to families of killed soldiers and other expenditures.
At the heart of Ukraine's budget problems is that the war is becoming increasingly expensive, Ukrainian and Western analysts say, just as Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities have intensified and become more deadly because of a lack of air defense. Russia's campaign to wipe out Ukrainian shipping in the Black Sea has hampered a key grain-export route for Ukraine.
The military is expanding, and the number of veterans to take care of is piling up, said Oleksandra Myronenko, economist at Ukraine's Centre for Economic Strategy.
Political gridlock is also playing a role. Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said that the government needs to pass 44 resolutions by Nov. 1 and that parliament must pass 43 laws in order to unlock some funding. That includes everything from charging tax on small packages to judicial reforms.
But the problems aren't just domestic. At a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in July, Ukraine's backers pledged to provide it with military support of $81 billion this year. So far, allies have earmarked only $72 billion, the Ukrainian defense ministry said.
Over the summer, European officials based in Kyiv have been parsing the budget data with the government there to make their own assessment of what is missing.
Some believe the $27 billion Ukrainian figure is significantly inflated, although EU officials had warned member states back in the spring that Ukraine's needs would likely be billions of euros higher than initially estimated.
Under the EU loan package, Ukraine is due to receive $52 billion in 2026 and the same amount next year. Two-thirds of the funding is for defense.
Non-EU member states and international financial institutions were supposed to contribute another $52 billion in loans for 2026-27, which Ukraine is currently factoring in. Only Norway has so far committed to the fund although officials say Canada is likely to do so soon, European officials say.
So far, the EU has paid out $13.5 billion to Ukraine from its loan. This week, the Commission will approve another $7 billion, part of which Ukraine can use to buy crucial products for Patriot air-defense systems to resist the intense Russian barrage of drones and missiles against the country, officials say.
For now, the EU is trying to avoid reopening discussions over new money, knowing the political blowback that could generate. The official line has been that officials are still working through numbers and have no new estimate for Ukraine's needs.
Privately, European officials say that they may not be able to match everything Ukraine is asking for this year. They warn that new money will almost certainly be needed next year.
Behind the scenes, discussions have already begun about how to fill the gap. All the options have drawbacks.
Ukraine has asked the EU to bring forward loan payments to fill the 2026 gap. Doing so would make it clear that the EU will probably need to find more money next year, a particularly perilous move ahead of the French presidential elections next April.
Nonetheless, Ireland's foreign minister, Helen McEntee, said after a meeting with her EU counterparts in Dublin on Sept. 1 that "a significant ?number of member states" were willing to speed up some payments.
A second option would be to effectively borrow money from the next EU multiyear budget, which begins in 2028. That earmarks 100 billion euros for Ukraine's recovery, but the spending plan hasn't been approved. Nonetheless, there are ways some of that money could be brought forward.
There is a third push from a group of member states to reopen discussion on tapping some $200 billion in frozen Russian assets for Ukraine. Doing so is currently seen as a last resort.
Belgium, where most of the money lies in a clearinghouse, remains vehemently opposed to tapping Russian assets because of the legal and financial risks Belgian officials argue it would expose them to. Even governments who strongly backed the plan last year, like Germany, don't want to reopen the discussion only for it to be blocked again, officials say.