On stage

LB

Liliane Bivings

Moderator · Kyiv Independent

TA

Timothy Ash

emerging-market investor

KG

Katya Gorbatiouk

London Stock Exchange

OR

Omar Ritter

fractional CFO

JK

Jeffrey Kramer

Nova Ukraine

Panellists debated how to fund Ukraine now and finance a reconstruction estimated at over $500 billion to $1 trillion. Timothy Ash pressed the case for seizing the ~$330 billion of immobilised Russian central-bank assets, dismissing the standard objections as scaremongering and calling for a Ukrainian sovereign wealth fund. Katya Gorbatiouk detailed how London's capital markets, investment trusts and corporate-governance reform could make Ukraine "an investment case," while Omar Ritter stressed channelling capital to small and medium businesses and Jeffrey Kramer argued philanthropy must be a deliberate, strategic gap-filler.

The substance

Key takeaways

1

Timothy Ash delivered a blunt indictment of Western failure: keeping Ukraine in the war costs ~$100 billion a year and winning would need ~$150 billion, yet three and a half years on the $330 billion of immobilized Russian reserves sits unused — a decision he argued should be taken by prime ministers and national security councils, not by the ECB, Belgian government or UK Treasury, "who have other interests."

2

Ash dismantled the arguments against seizure as "scaremongering," reasoning that neither Saudi Arabia nor China would pull reserves from Western markets because there are no alternative liquid markets for their trillions, and warning that the real cost of delay was handing "a gift to the populist agendas" — letting Trump and Le Pen argue against spending domestic taxpayer money that Russian money could have covered.

3

Katya Gorbatiouk pushed back on any sequential "win first, rebuild later" logic, arguing Ukraine "should not be a charity case, but an investment case" and detailing how the London Stock Exchange — the second-largest capital market in the free world, with 60% overseas investors and a 156-year-old investment-trust market — could channel bundled portfolios of Ukrainian assets to market even now, with IFIs anchoring early IPOs.

4

Omar Ritter insisted reconstruction must reach the local level, noting 75% of Ukraine's workforce is in SMEs that never go public, and warned — citing Afghanistan and Iraq where people "filled their trunks with cash and flew off" — that money must be parsed out year by year, with public banks absorbing downside risk to draw private capital in.

5

Jeffrey Kramer made the case for philanthropy as strategic "gap-filler" rather than afterthought ("part of the cake," not "the icing"), citing Nova Ukraine's $180 million delivered since 2022 and a $6 million, 200-bed pediatric hospital near Lviv — while Ash closed with the hard truth that Ukraine's post-war recovery is a "public good" the private sector will not fund, requiring a new EBRD-style institution the G7 has so far failed to create.

In their words

Key quotes

“

There's no recovery and reconstruction unless you win the war.

Timothy Ash

“

we all agreed that Ukraine should not be a charity case, but it should be an investment case.

Katya Gorbatiouk

“

philanthropy cannot be — as I like to say — the icing on our cake around the world. It's got to be part of the cake.

Jeffrey Kramer

“

three and a half years, we haven't funded or armed Ukraine to win. That's the harsh reality.

Timothy Ash

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