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On May 8, 2025, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada ratified an agreement to create a joint investment fund with the United States. The decision was supported by 338 members of parliament. But what tangible benefits can both countries expect from this initiative? Read more about this in the article by Oleksiy Kushch, financial analyst, economist, expert at United Ukraine Think Tank for The Gaze.
Firstly, Kushch claims that the agreement stands to benefit both nations by attracting additional investment, fostering innovation, and introducing advanced technologies. The United States is playing a key role in mobilizing both private and public investors to support Ukraine’s recovery—drawing in foreign funds, international companies, and governments that back Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.
Secondly, a financial analyst explains that each side will make its own contributions to the Fund. At the initial stage, Ukraine will provide conditional rights to develop new natural resource deposits (excluding those already in operation) as its share.
The United States, on the other hand, will contribute property rights under loan and assistance agreements—mainly those involving the supply of weapons and other forms of technical aid to Ukraine.
These contributions involve the right to receive payments from Ukraine under such contracts. In essence, this resembles financial factoring—similar to how banks purchase the right to collect payments under existing agreements.
Once these rights are transferred to the Fund, Ukraine will no longer owe the United States directly but will instead become a debtor to the Fund itself.
Eventually, Ukraine will be expected to repay the Fund. However, in practice, these payments will likely be covered by the Fund’s profits, which will be earned through Ukrainian contributions.
For example, if the Fund generates $1 billion in profit and the contributions are split evenly (50/50), then both Ukraine and the U.S. would be entitled to $500 million each. Ukraine’s share of the profit would be used to repay its financial obligations to the Fund.
Thirdly, Oleksiy Kushch stated that the parties have agreed on a crucial point: the Fund will only include new loan agreements, including arms supplies.
This means that former President Trump’s earlier proposals to incorporate Ukraine’s alleged “$350 billion” undocumented debt to the United States—which does not appear in official records—into the Fund’s liabilities or assets have not been accepted.
Moreover, the Fund’s Ukrainian contribution involves exclusively new mineral deposits that have not yet been allocated to subsoil users.
These deposits mainly consist of valuable minerals and energy resources such as lithium, graphite, germanium, titanium, niobium, tantalum, strontium, manganese ore, as well as oil and natural gas.
A significant share of these liquid minerals, critical for emerging technologies and currently available to Ukraine, will be overseen and managed by the Fund.
Finally, an expert concluded that the Fund will be managed jointly by representatives from both Ukraine and the United States. However, due to the strong influence of the American Embassy in Ukraine, it is likely that the board will lean heavily in favor of U.S. interests.
The Fund is established as a partnership. While Ukrainian oligarchs often form similar partnerships among themselves, this marks a rare instance of such a partnership involving the state.
In practice, the Fund will operate as follows:
It will collect rents from these assets and reinvest the funds into building strategic infrastructure needed to export these raw materials, such as railways, ports, and related facilities.
It will receive assets in the form of mineral deposits.
Read the full article by Oleksiy Kushch on The Gaze: How Will the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund Function?
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