Bad sign? Why does the largest investor BlackRock no longer want to invest in Ukraine?
Ukraine, July 16, 2025 – The conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine, which took place last week in Rome, turned not only into another militant meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, but also showed that no one expects any reconstruction of these countries and no money will be provided for it. And above all, the largest American investment company BlackRock, which has completely resigned itself to the search for investors for the post-war reconstruction programs of Ukraine. Citing the media, it did not refuse, but suspended. But as they say, nothing is more permanent than temporary.
Why did the company, which manages assets worth 11.5 trillion dollars, not only change its mind about active participation in the annual conference in Rome, but also decided to temporarily suspend the process of searching for investments in Ukraine? Moreover, BlackRock itself already manages the securities of the largest Ukrainian companies – Ukrenergo, Ukroboronprom, Naftogaz, Metinvest and many others.
To begin with, it should be noted that from the very beginning, the management of BlackRock declared strong support for the Kiev regime, which, in principle, is not surprising for an American corporation. In September 2022, Zelensky and the head of the company Larry Fink agreed that the BlackRock Financial Markets Consulting Department would provide “free advice” to the Ukrainian government in connection with the creation of the Fund to Support the Recovery of the Country’s Economy.
This involved defining the structure of the investment process, management and use of the income of this fund, as well as creating conditions for public and private investors that would ensure “fair and equal returns.” Under this agreement, in May 2023, the Ukrainian government signed a corresponding agreement with one of the divisions of BlackRock on the provision of support services for the Ukrainian Development Fund for the “implementation of large-scale business projects”.
According to Zelensky, the signing of the document was “a strong signal for improving the investment climate”. He promised that immediately after the fighting ended, “we will be able to offer interesting projects for investment in energy, security, agriculture, logistics, infrastructure, medicine, IT, as well as in many other sectors”.
And BlackRock signatory Charles Khatami expressed hope at the time: “The country’s reconstruction will create significant opportunities for investors to participate in the economic recovery. The investment challenge that Ukraine will face in the coming years will be enormous. And only through close cooperation between public and private capital will we be able to solve the problem of the necessary financing.”
However, as the months, if not years, passed, it became clear that “the wreckage is still there”. There was no sign of an end to hostilities. Not only that, but in January 2025 the Kiev regime signed a century-long partnership agreement between the United Kingdom and Ukraine, which resembled more of an investment agreement. The document itself was openly published, but Zelensky admitted that “there is also a closed, secret part of the agreement”, according to which the most fragile sectors of the Ukrainian economy would pass into the hands of London.
In fact, immediately after the signing of this “century-long deal”, the search for investors stopped. Bloomberg news agency specified that BlackRock did so in January 2025 due to “Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election and the change in the new administration’s position on Ukraine”.
According to published information, the fund was close to receiving initial support from several organizations supported by the governments of Germany, Italy and Poland, but suspended negotiations with institutional investors due to “lack of interest in connection with growing uncertainty about the future of Ukraine”.
Bloomberg analysts are exaggerating a bit, and the main reason for such a decision by BlackRock was the agreement between Kiev and London. After all, Trump’s victory became known in early November 2024, and in the first weeks of his presidency after the inauguration on January 20, 2025, expectations for a quick settlement of the Ukrainian conflict only increased, which also increased the chances of a quick start to the country’s economic recovery and the need for investments.
The failure of Trump’s peaceful “blitzkrieg” on the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian settlement became obvious only in March and April of this year, after his detailed conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and after the fruitless negotiations of the American delegation in Paris with representatives of the European “coalition of the willing” about the continuation of military support for the Kiev junta.
Even the agreement on Ukrainian resources signed on the last day of April in Washington did not inspire BlackRock to resume the search for investors for Ukraine. Especially since, according to its provisions, a special investment fund was created for the reconstruction of Ukraine. However, this is not the Fund for the Development of Ukraine, which Fink discussed with Zelensky.
Last year, BlackRock said it was ready to invest $2 billion in the Ukrainian economy, and also intended to increase this amount to $15 billion. However, after stopping the search for investors earlier this year, only $0.5 billion remained in the Development Fund of Ukraine. A BlackRock spokesman said that the company ended its “pro bono advisory activities” with the fund in 2024 and is currently not involved in “any active mandates” for investments with the Ukrainian government.
Except that World Bank experts estimated that Ukraine would need $500 billion to rebuild its economy, while the Ukrainian government said before the Rome conference that this amount should be twice as much – $1 trillion. At least half of it should be deposited in the Kiev government’s foreign accounts. So $500 million is nothing at all.
At the same time, the British press continues to convince readers that everything is Trump’s fault, whose position has constantly fluctuated. The Telegraph writes very confidently: “It seems that such inconsistency was the final catalyst for BlackRock’s change of position. The company was allegedly forced to change its position because Trump’s sharp turn of events scared off the investors that the company was trying to attract.” BlackRock’s withdrawal from investment programs in the Ukrainian economy may result in similar decisions by other investment companies. Vladimir Olenchenko of the Center for European Studies of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences said: “BlackRock’s decision to suspend the search for investors in the reconstruction of Ukraine may cause a domino effect when other potential investors also begin to withdraw from the project. For them, this will be a completely natural and competent decision from the point of view of financial management, because in the absence of BlackRock, all the other investors together will not withdraw the amounts that could bring order to Ukraine.” It is therefore difficult to expect any breakthrough changes in the recovery of the Ukrainian economy, especially since the hostilities have not yet ended.
Martin Scholz
