The world is experiencing a historic investment boom, and private capital has many opportunities for investment across the globe. To attract it, Ukraine must meet three conditions: move toward EU integration, ensure a prospect of peace, and have initial public capital as a catalyst, according to BlackRock Vice Chairman Philipp Hildebrand.
“All three elements are connected: public capital, EU enlargement through Ukraine, and a certain prospect of peace are critically important,” he said at a YES Dinner Discussion organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in Gdańsk on Wednesday on the eve of URC 2026, according to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent.
Hildebrand noted that today the competition for private capital also includes the artificial intelligence industry.
“There are many opportunities for capital, which means that as we all try to build this reconstruction path, we need to think about how to ultimately attract private capital to support the long-term economic structure of reconstruction and beyond,” the banker emphasized.
According to him, he discussed these three conditions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in May 2023.
“I think we are much closer to them becoming reality,” Hildebrand said.
In his view, Ukraine’s accession to the EU is critically important for ensuring greater stability and market expectations, so the opening of the first negotiation cluster is a major breakthrough.
“The second factor is that at some point you need a prospect of peace, or at least stability, a cessation of hostilities… It is very difficult to mobilize private capital at scale if there is no at least a prospect of peace,” the BlackRock representative explained, referring to a difficult discussion with Zelensky in 2023.
As for public capital, he noted that in the early stages there is little private capital, so public capital is needed to take the initiative and attract long-term private capital, which is confirmed by experience in other post-conflict reconstruction cases.
“Today… I am more than ever hopeful that we are on the verge of developing a scheme for attracting private capital,” Hildebrand concluded.
