Zelensky praises US for confronting "Russian evil" as Ukraine aid bill passes | Ukraine: The Latest

I'm David Nolles and I'm from Ukraine. Today's

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we bring you news from across Ukraine, analyze the impact of the passage of the massive US aid

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to Ukraine on Saturday, and sit down with an expert to understand foreign investment in Ukraine during the large-scale invasion ring takes you through the most unimaginable difficulties to finally reward you with victory if we give president zalinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job slava ukrainian no one is going to break us we are strong we are ukrainians every weekday afternoon sit down with the principals Telegraphs London Newsroom journalists and our teams reporting from the ground to bring you the

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It's Monday, April 22. It has been 2 years and 58 days since the large-scale invasion began and today. I'm joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols and US editor Tony Diver. I started by asking Dom for the latest news from Ukraine. Well, hello David, hello everyone, a very busy weekend across the country, in Ukraine, mainly in the center and east, although to be honest, the Russian attacks continued. Over the weekend, causing deaths and injuries to civilians across the country, mainly in Donet, the Hazon Zapia Zapia explosion saw 202 attacks in six communities, although surprisingly no casualties were reported there. The city of Nicol was also hit by artillery fire which was last night near the city of Denpro and then in Hke there were also injuries there.

Ukrainian forces say they shot down five Shahed-type drones over Adessa, all causing some damage to the ground, but surprisingly, again, no casualties were reported. Elsewhere on the front line, in the Luhansk area, Russia appeared to have made marginal advances west of Crina. The fighting there appears mainly on the Kuan Savat Kina lines and then a little further south in Donet. Russian forces continue advancing in the Bmot area yesterday no confirmed advances there ukrainian military sources said that

russian

forces had unsuccessfully attacked east of cque, the

russian

mod claimed that some elements of his forces, of no given size, had seized balanka, which is northeast of Chivar, there is no geolocation or way to verify that and there is no other evidence that that is correct, however, a Ukrainian National Guard officer said that Russian forces had managed to secure positions in the Bodka area where they transferred significant material and established well-prepared defensive positions.

Now the National Guard officer did not specify whether Russian forces control bodka uh and the assessment there is that they are trying to use that. We are trying to surround Chiv or take Chivar. Remember May 9, the Russian Victory Day Parade or Victory Day, where there's a parade and it looks like Bodva might be the kind of shoulder north of Chassard that they're going to try to turn. around um as well as trying to take over iiva which is southeast of chavar to enter from the south so it looks like they are trying to do another envelopment there like they did with bmot and to some extent ad Diva chas de himself with Russian forces.

Ukrainian military officials said there were no Russian troops inside the city yet and a spokesman said Russian forces are using it well, trying to use combined arms combat vehicles, helicopters. Ukraine has also been very active. Ukrainian forces were very active over the weekend. They said they hit and damaged another ship in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, so the community submarine support ship is said to be the oldest active-duty naval ship in the world. was hit in Seole geolocated images published yesterday showing a fire and a plume of smoke in the bay. Russian sources claimed that air defenses had intercepted a Ukrainian anti-ship missile in the area, but perhaps one or at least another managed to get through open source analyst hello.

Sutton, you see, his Shaes undercover website is worth a read. He noted that the commune provides the Russian Navy with very valuable capabilities and frequently participated in sea trials and can carry out warfare on the seabed that we have written many times in the In recent years, actually, about how Russia is trying to interfere with undersea cables, the Internet cables through which huge amounts of the world's financial and traffic data now pass. cillo banov General Banov, the head of Ukrainian Military Intelligence, has been talking to the BBC, um, it's another outlet. organization based here in London, uh, said that Ukraine is about to face what he calls a difficult but not catastrophic situation on the front lines in the near future, says that as of noon he gave an interview that was published this tomorrow, although I was speaking on April 19, which was last Friday 21 21 or yeah, something like that anyway, speaking a few days ago before the vote in the US, the additional aid was approved that Tony will speak shortly, his words would probably have changed little, but he said a We are in for a difficult situation in the near future, but it will not be catastrophic, let's be clear, he said there will be no Armageddon, as many say we will not talk at length about it now , but there will be a difficult period in mid-June.

I think it's still standing isw The Institute for the Study of War, speaking about the effect of the vote over the weekend, said well, two things are obvious. Russia will likely intensify ongoing offensive operations, including missile and drone strikes, in the coming weeks to exploit what they call the closing window of Ukraine's material limitations and, secondly, suggest that they assess that Ukraine will likely be in a significantly improved operational position by June of this year, regardless of delays in any arrival of US security assistance that the Russian military command will likely consider. significant changes to the large-scale offensive operation that many have been saying is expected to launch in June, although it may still proceed as planned now, those two obviously related to the weekend vote and unlikely due to the time frame that General Banov I would have backtracked from any of the comments he made on the 19th and then just a final one for me D, but we just posted this.

The US has warned that China is now what it said is the largest contributor to Russia's war in Ukraine and broader military expansion through the supply of critical weapons components, so Anthony Blinkin, the Secretary of US State, speaking on Friday, said Beijing's supply of semiconductors for machine tools and other key parts to produce weapons is contributing to what it said. was the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War and added that Washington had made it very clear to Beijing and others that they should not help Russia's war effort, this was part of the Foreign Ministers were speaking as part of G7 foreigners on the island of Capri in the Gulf of Naples said that when it comes to Russia's defense industrial base, the main contributor.

Right now, that's China, we see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base. China cannot have it both ways, it cannot afford to want to have positive friendly relations with countries in Europe and at the same time it is fueling the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War now has many other discussions, including what is happening in Gaza and also the missile exchanges between Israel and Iran. Washington is in no doubt about how it expects European allies to increase pressure on China to help deter it from helping Russia.

In an assessment last week, the United States accused Beijing of helping Russia undertake what it says is its most ambitious defense expansion since the Soviet era and on a faster timeline than we thought possible. I think those last words are quite revealing, they say that Chinese assistance to Russia includes material. and technology that is key to the manufacture of missiles, drones, tanks and airplanes, as well as other things. waging an illegal war against Ukraine we cannot accept this, remember? Just before the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia and China declared that they had a limitless partnership and have not backed down for a long time, as they had informed each other suspicions that China was supplying vital supplies. components to Moscow Ukrainian officials have made it very clear that they are finding an increasing number of Chinese components, particularly electronic components, in Russian weapons on the battlefield Western sanctions designed to restrict the supply of military and dual-use items by part of the companies. those things that can be repurposed for military applications, it means that Russia has obviously turned to other places, we know they are looking for artillery in North Korea, they have obviously gone to Iran for drones and they are also turning to Beijing more and more for the technology Ukrainian officials say they found Chinese-made components in a navigation system installed on aerial drones that had previously used a Swiss system and also found Chinese parts in fire control systems on Russian tanks that, before Western sanctions, those parts specifics had been done in France, so there is a lot of pressure or greater pressure on China, David and the US very much hope that Europe will now increase its efforts in this area as well and I will have to pause and disappear there, David, If that's okay with you, I have to get back to my mental health first aid training course, so I'll do that for you and thank you so much for that recap.

Dom Nichols Tony, diver, let's see you next, the USAID invoice. happened Saturday take us through the day what will report on how it felt on the hill well good morning David yeah pretty big news from the hill this weekend I feel like I've been on this podcast so many times telling you nothing has really changed and that we are going to enter into even more endless negotiations about how the government could get this

bill

passed well, it has finally happened. I can explain all the details to you, but the short version is basically that Joe Biden's request for just over $60 billion in lethal US aid to Ukraine has passed the House of Representatives, that is his first and most difficult hurdle to receive approval, which means that if it is approved, we believe that it will probably happen this week that an additional budget of 60 billion will be requested. magically created in the Pentagon, allowing Joe Biden to send weapons to Ukraine from existing US military arsenals, under what is known as the Presidential Drawdown Authority, and that means basically weapons that are already stockpiled by the US. in Europe, all in arsenals.

The entire continent can start moving toward Ukraine as soon as that bill is signed, and that basically means we could see some pretty serious American weapons being delivered to Ukraine in the coming days, so it's a very important update on this long term. Saga ends a six-Monon impasse in Congress where Republicans and Democrats have clashed with each other over this bill and also marks a pretty significant shift in policy for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is in charge of control business in the House of Representatives. and bringing legislation to uh representatives and his decision to introduce this bill and allow it to pass with support largely from Democrats who are on the opposite side of it is pretty significant and he's getting a lot of criticism for that.

Well, Tony, there's a lot to cover here. Can we start with Mike Johnson? Do we have an idea what changed his mind here? What is the history? Yes, there's a fascinating story to tell here about Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson hasn't been in the house. Long an unlikely choice for president last October, when Kevin McCarthy, the previous president, was ousted by the same group of Republicans in his own party at the time, he has always been a strong supporter of Ukraine. I think it's fair Let's say you know the last time we had a big crisis. A moment like this was in May 2022.

At that time, it wasn't actually the majority of Republicans in Congress who were opposed to spending more money in Ukraine. There was a vote in May 2022 around 50. 55 57 something like that Republicans were opposed to sending more money and Mike Johnson was among them, so it was fair to say that he in the winning stage was one of those hardline Republicans that they were lobbying against this kind of package, well, everything has changed now and it has become the man who has facilitated it. In fact, he gave a very interesting interview after Saturday's events in which he basically said that he decided to act againstof his own political interests to do what he said was right.

She said that My Philosophy is. Do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may, he says, if I operated out of fear of an annulment motion, which is a vote of no confidence in you, then I would never be able to do my job, look, judges of history. us for what we do, he said this is a critical moment right now, so I saw a conversion here from Mike Johnson, who suddenly came out and said that he actually believes that passing this is the right thing to do, that it is a moment of History. words that I think it's fair to say that he borrowed from the president himself and that bill was finally passed and what that means.

Do you think for the Republican Party we had a question from a listener? I'll read it out loud. This is from Charlie, who says that most of us House Republicans voted against the Ukraine aid bill even though most politicians suggest that a supermajority of Republican voters strongly support Ukraine and Why the disagreement, what does this mean for the Republican Party? Well, it's a very interesting question and the question that people are asking here on the hill, let's do the numbers first, so there were 112 Republicans who voted against this package on Saturday, that's out of a total of 2,117.

Republicans in Congress, who are a little more than half of the magician M Mass Among Us, will be able to calculate that the Republicans have a slight majority, a very small majority in the chamber, which means that in normal times nothing without full support republican of republicans can pass. Well, that's why you need to rely on these Democratic votes in answer to the question, although I think the picture is a little more complicated than that and, in fact, the latest polls don't necessarily show that the vast majority of Republicans support Ukraine, actually the The latest Gallup poll, released earlier this month, shows that relatively few Republicans actually want the war to continue and for the United States to fund it in its current form; they would prefer to see some kind of negotiated end to the war, that is, involving Ukraine sowing territory for Russia.

In one poll, 77% of Democrats said they preferred to help Ukraine regain the land it lost to Russia, but that is only true for 45% of Republicans and when looking at a separate question asking whether the United States is Doing enough or not, there are 60% of Democrats who say America is not doing enough, but only 15% of Republicans say the same, so what we're really seeing is a shift in the foundation. of Republican voters toward the position on the Ukraine war held by Donald Trump, which is that We should try to achieve a quick, negotiated end to the war one way or another, but almost certainly involving territory given by Ukraine to Russia, while that Democrats are much more likely to support sending weapons so they can continue fighting, so I think that's not really the case. maybe as simple as that.

If you ask a simple question: do you support Ukraine? You would probably get a majority of those Republicans, but exactly how you support Ukraine and how you get there is a little bit more complicated question, so I think some of those Republicans. Those who voted against this bill can reasonably claim to support the views of either a majority or a very large minority of the Republican Party in terms of what is happening in politics and what will happen next on the hill. We have already seen several calls. that Mike Johnson resigned because of this support for the bill and his willingness to work with Democrats on it.

Marjerie Taylor Green, who is the kind of hardline conservative Republican who has been leading these efforts against him, immediately accused Mike Johnson immediately after the vote of betraying the American people, said she is going to push an override motion to try to get rid of him as soon as possible and has been publicly endorsed by two other Republican representatives, so it's fair to say that there isn't a huge groundswell of opposition to Mike Johnson after this, but there are plenty of complaints, we may see a vote on a motion to make eight this week is very unlikely to pass, but I think this is a decision that has rubbed a lot of the wrong buttons. especially among the House Freedom caucus, which is the kind of hardline Republican group that generally aligns with Donald Trump and definitely aligns against working with Democrats.

Well, Tony, you've talked about Trump several times, what does this mean for him? Has there been any change in position by Donald Trump when this bill was passed? What do you think this means for the Republican candidate heading into the November elections? Well, I thought it was interesting actually that we didn't get an immediate response from Donald Trump about Actually, in this vote we're normally in an important political moment like this, we normally see Donald Trump jump on it right away and that's partly because PR reasons because he wants the things he says about the stories to become reality in what we saw.

Was he posting on TR Social about his criminal trials starting today with opening arguments in New York? We didn't see an immediate response from him. His position on all this is very interesting. I mean, he has a long standing position. What I just summarized is that he believes Ukraine should try to bring this war to a negotiated settlement. He said that if he were president he would end the war in one day. He doesn't believe the United States should spend billions of taxpayer dollars on financing. of weapons for Ke, but he has supported Mike Johnson. The interesting fact here is that, as you know, Mike Johnson was facing a lot of opposition to his presidency from some Republicans in that kind of Maga wing of the party.

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump held a press conference where he came out with Mikee Johnson and said that he's doing a great job under difficult circumstances, so I think it's very unlikely that we'll see a major change in US policy. Donald Trump, but he's slightly caught here between his published position supporting the speaker and the position of his own supporters in Congress who are very much against him in terms of what this means. I mean, that's all kind of Beltway politics, but looking at what this really means. In terms of financing, the goal of this package designed by the White House to present 60 billion (the largest package ever delivered to Ukraine in one go) is to try to get enough support in the bank before the November elections, because The White House is very concerned because it has been such a difficult package to pass that it is not really possible to do what they did at the beginning of the war, which is to come to Congress gradually with a few billion here and a few billion millions there and ask him to approve a vote because it is very difficult to get one of these to pass the White House.

He put together what's known as the one and one strategy, which is to approve 60 billion in one go and say, that's it, there's your budget until November and we'll spend it until then, so obviously what's going to happen next beyond November, when there's a new president or a second Biden term, that's a completely different question that we probably don't have time to get into here, but I think that's the point we need to make clear. is that now this is basically a resolved issue, the money has been resolved as long as it

passes

through the Senate at the end of this week and Donald Trump will have to accept what happens now, so we have the Senate vote, they are the people who support this bill.

I mean, do you think it's going to go through that and what happens then is everything just gets going and projectiles and equipment start coming off the production lines? What happens is pretty much that's it, yeah, and there's a lot more support for Ukraine and for this kind of package in the Senate that's controlled by Democrats, so Chuck Schuma, who's the majority leader, the leader. of the Democratic majority in the Senate has said he expects a vote to take place early this week, possibly tomorrow. So basically it will be a straight vote with ups and downs in which the senators will give their opinion.

We may see a bit of debate which might be interesting for those of us who follow politics, but it's basically what we expect. Let's see the Senate pass. Joe Biden has said that he will sign it the moment it gets to his desk, which is the next thing that happens after it has passed through the Senate and once that happens, he basically opens this budget in the Pentagon, allowing the United States It will send the supplies it already has to Europe, so really the practicalities of this are quite bureaucratic. It's about whether or not there's money in the Pentagon's spreadsheet to pay for these things.

Actually, what it means is that the president can authorize the use of these types of weapons, the type of weapons that we spend a lot of time discussing on this podcast, but you know, Atam missiles, Patriot missiles, possibility of more tanks and everything Vladimir Zinsky has been calling for the last few months, he says he is falling short and you know where he feels Russia has outgunned him on the front so once it comes to an end we hope to see the House White moving extremely fast and starting to receive these things on trucks and moving from their current location mainly in Germany, but also elsewhere in Europe and Ukraine, where they can then be used by Kei and finally Tony, what does this mean for Biden?

I mean, there was some criticism that we've heard quite a bit of criticism of the White House for the slowness and the kind of reaction to Ukraine's request for help? What does this mean for his authority in the Democratic Party and what does it mean for him as president? Leader, you know the supposed leader of the Free World in the Democratic Party well, he faces broad support for his position. Democrats have always supported this package and there has been a lot of frustration with Republicans who have been trying to block it. I think there has been criticism of Joe Biden, you're right, I mean, in terms of how he's handled this politically and whether or not he's moved fast enough.

I think he's faced a pretty difficult task here in trying to get an unpopular package. through a Republican-controlled chamber and you know that he faces the same problems as all the presidents before him, which is to say, when the chamber goes against you, it is very difficult to pass any legislation and this is something that, as I said before, you know a year ago. He long ago had broad support among Republicans and Democrats and he doesn't have it anymore, so I think there will be a lot of relief in the White House after all this. I think Biden will immediately start pointing to it as evidence of his great political brinkmanship. thanks for making it all work for him there is a republican on the other side and that is Mike Johnson so I think we know we could see some increase in support for Biden among those who already think Ukraine should be supported by the United States , although those people are much more likely to support the president anyway.

I think this really isn't a great executive move. It's all because of what's happening at home. Thank you very much Tony. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you think is? It's important for our listeners to hear it. I think Dom mentioned it briefly and his opening remarks there, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out in European capitals. We expect some kind of Prime Minister's visit to Europe in the UK. Rich, he will soon be traveling to Europe sometime this week to talk about all of these things. We had already seen Europe really gearing up to try to make up for that US shortfall if this package couldn't pass, so what happens now?

In relation to those plans, whether or not Europe continues to spend the amount of money that it was talking about before this happened will be a very interesting question and, going forward, the big question, as I mentioned before, is what happens after November. war for the next seven months, but after that it's anyone's guess and whether European capitals will start to implement plans for that and start planning to increase their spending assuming that the Trump presidency will not continue is a very interesting question. Furthermore, we are going to be attentive to that issue. Thanks Dom and Tony.

One of the biggest economic problems facing Ukraine right now is how much money the state and companies can attract from outside the country. Many efforts are being made. involve private investors and support existing Ukrainian companies during the war to understand the challenges and issues involved. I spoke with the special envoy for investments, innovations and war risk insurance at the Ukrainian economy ministry. He is also the leader of the Advantage Ukraine investment team, Alexander gban. here is the conversation, could you tell us then what you have been doing in recent years during the invasion oflarge scale what type of work have you focused on?

At that time I was the deputy minister of economy and mainly my main focus was investments. And of course, it's a tough cell during the time of war, and at the same time, we were creative enough to try to focus on the most efficient absorption of the financial aid that was coming to Ukraine during these last few years. Ukraine managed to survive. only because of the financial support from international partners and the common knowledge that Ukraine was fueling 50% of its expenses through tax collection internally and then 50% came from macro financial technical support and what Ukraine was doing, He spent it for the army. and then the rest of the social, doctors, teachers, etc., fell on the shoulders of the donors at the same time, in order not to use those who feed the army with taxes, part of the funds should have been redirected to the specific support of either through the landing instruments that eventually occur through the development of international financial institutions.

Financial institutions collect taxes for credit agencies and then direct support from the government or where the government is then redistributing part of the eight through incentives or negotiated conditions for future investors, but that was not the case. a lot implemented and then the biggest problem, of course, is the political and war risk insurance, how to make this happen, because even if you have the loans and the loans available, you still need to secure the capital and then the international capital without sure it is impossible in Ukraine, so those were the questions, it was clever, you said in your answer that it is a hard sell to persuade international investors to invest in Ukraine.

I guess my question has two parts, one is what exactly are they worried about and how do you talk to them about those worries? How do you persuade them well? The biggest concern in particular is not even the risk of war per se, so it's not the risk of a missile hitting your facilities, as everyone understands you should be. a little care and choosing it relatively far from some regular targets protects you from that and in fact we are preparing the massive launch of the war risk data sharing platform that was started at the National Security Consortium and the defense council with the support of Marsh McLean this is one of the instruments to convince them but what they fear most now is the political risk because it basically means that the government to a certain extent is unpredictable and it is not because the government wants to be, it is because the enemy is unpredictable and, Therefore, the way the situation will develop might require some more radical decisions, but no one knows where it will eventually lead because, relatively, you understand the security ecosystem as it is correct and therefore you already know what the The limits of the government in terms of the current status quo are correct, so they need political risk insurance that basically guarantees the potential loss of the investment, so if you don't get the return on the investment the way you are planning, basically it means that you can then get compensation for the balance you lost, normally it is up to 90 95% coverage which is relatively okay in these conditions, of course this leads you to high risk and high return, so which always comes in a pair and it's really the case in Ukraine now with the viable business model it means that after the war you have to be prepared, you have to be in the market and then you can make the massive leap correctly, so these are the advantages and that is also combined with the skilled and skilled labor that is here all the time and especially in the technical and innovative spheres and then logistics properly placed, you see in the grain initiative that we are gradually driving the Russians out of the Black Sea, both physically and mentally, and I think it is going to We are losing more and more ships and now they are already afraid to be there and in addition to that, we have the insurance instrument also backed by Marsh and Lloyds and then by the Ukrainian banks if You need this right, so even affordable insurance is there.

So it's still a good hub for everything to do with Europe and it's relatively close to Europe and again, if we don't have any problems with Western neighbors then it's probably a good idea to invest in Ukraine. When you talk to investors and international companies and entrepreneurs who are thinking about investing in Ukraine, you find that you end up having to explain to them the reality of what life is like on the ground. Do you meet many people who imagine that? every ukrainian city looks a bit like bmot and they don't know what they are getting into.

How do you have those conversations? Normally you have some xat who is working in Ukraine or has been to Ukraine or has seen that life in Kev. and then it's easy to convince them, but basically you convince them when you explain it even in a slightly technical way, so there is the conventional weapon. Extension, right? Let's put it this way, the rockets we faced yesterday morning are ballistic. and ultra high speed whatever and this is different, they fly hundreds of kilometers and the range of the conventional weapon is 50 to 60 kilometers maximum, maybe up to 80, so imagine Ukraine and then the Battlefront and then at 80 kilometers and this is your orange and R. red zones as permanent PLS, but the rest because of this Battlefront lives a normal life and we are trying to survive so if we do not manage the economy if we do not maintain consumption levels if we do not maintain production levels the country is just going to disappear, of course, to some extent, we are in a bit of a warm situation with all these supports, right, and one would think that this will last forever and of course I like it now that finally the International community is adopting the idea of ​​dealing with frozen Russian assets, but I think eventually we will be able to access the beginning of that amount and this will drive the restoration and then they will just have to make decisions that the weapons could be financed and then you can plan, you can say, Well, we have another two years, guys, so in two years we should do everything we can to survive without it.

Could you talk a little about the companies the count is investing in in Ukraine at the moment? moment, who is really in favor, who we should be aware of, that they are putting their money where their mouth is, so the large part of the FDI inflows in 2022 and 23 were reinvested, which means that companies invested the profits earned in Ukraine to support the total current business. The FDI flow in 2022 was as little as 556 million. 2022 by country is like Switzerland 362, basically I think it is the holdings of Ukrainian businessmen that are bringing the money back and the United Kingdom 262 and then Luxembourg 252, which is the home of all the private equity funds in the United States 215 .24 we still do not have this data for 2023 by country and then according to the nbu balance of payments report, the net FDI inflows in 23 were already 4.2 billion dollars, which is much higher than the profits. by reinvestment of 2022, although they were 3.2, which means that Ukrainian businessmen are mainly those who believe in the country, have dry powder and put their skin in the game and that is the perfect time for foreign lending companies or Equity Partners come because the Ukrainians are willing to take on most of the risk that they already run most of. capex investments are done by themselves so it is low hanging fruit and then some announcements and pre-Investments were 3.2 inflows and Equity 651 this is really good and then DAT 523 instruments mainly come from international financial institutions because until July the debt for such as loans between companies were restricted and some announcements in 2023 in terms of companies, so the Coronel Nebulon Grain Alliance invested 44 million.

These are all Ukrainian companies. The UN is investing 20 million in the new factory, construction of which will begin in 2024 because I think their factory. was damaged due to the Russian attack, basically it is the Turkish contractor who was quite active here in Ukraine, but on the roads they announced an investment of 225 million in the extraction of mineral resources, including the extraction of graffiti and cin, so they have the intention to invest 160 million also in The Norwegians are talking about green energy and I know that they are ready to build projects. Local investors again, retailers who are active in different real estate fields and are also investing up to 500 million in a new ski resort in Ukraine because like domestic tourism is booming due to restricted access outside the country for men , something you mentioned there, which is really interesting about how money comes in, you said the UK, Luxembourg, France, but you said it's often Ukrainian companies reinvesting. but they are also the ones who take the risks, so to translate that means that there are Western companies partnering with Ukrainian companies and the Ukrainian companies say we are in the country, we will do this, but we need your support is that, broadly speaking, the The way it works sounds like a pretty clever way to fix some of the problems.

When I say these are mostly Ukrainian reinvestments, I mean that Ukrainian sponsors and ubos are usually structured in foreign jurisdictions, so when you have a ubo friends or she could have a limited company LLP based in Switzerland or the United Kingdom, for example, where they, as a limited partner, have a registered general partner who manages their assets is normally a resident of the United Kingdom or Switzerland, whichever is the other international country, but that is all transparent, so these High net worth people set up Holdings in Switzerland or the UK or, I don't know, the Netherlands, which used to be in Cypress and BVI, now it's a little more civilized.

I would say that they have the funds accumulated there that they now have. now they invest in the country because they see that that is the dry powder that they keep there, they do not keep it in the country before the capital controls, they were expatriating all the dividends there through intercompany loans or dividend structures and only They were saving. in international accounts and now they see the opportunities in Ukraine, they don't want to lose market share because, as I said, if you invest in your resilience now in the business you will make five times more profit.

True, this is a classic rule. and there are the businessmen who normally do this forever in Ukraine for 30 years and they usually buy the distressed assets and take control of the market shares and then when the crisis is over they are on the White Horse selling everything and you have a There are several groups here that are always ready to generate this quick liquidity and some of them are in the manufacturing business, some of them are in the agriculture business and the energy business, but when I also mentioned that it is a good time for international Equity Partners to come to Ukraine now because again these guys already live by international standards, they all have audits, have a history with kyc procedures of international banks, are compliant, etc., and they have already taken the first risk: They could invite international strategic partners or private capital.

The funds in the already existing business, so they do not come for the green field but for the brown field, something that is mainly due again to the political risk that the locals want to mitigate by having the international in the game, gives them a little. It already has a different perception and at the same time they provide everything necessary from the local partner to keep the business running and then you also come with your own capital, but they would also have the international partner who will come. with some leverage Solutions with some debts or new contracts or experience Etc. could we talk about war?

Sure, could you just explain to listeners who may not have a background in economics exactly how it works, but I'm especially interested in how? could have changed in the last two years given the events and flows of the war, so here I would distinguish two types of insurance: there is a conventional classic type of insurance when you have property insurance or you have life insurance or you have your car insurance is true, so you are insuring an asset, you are insuring something tangible and this is a type of insurance, this type of insurance depends mainly on the risk of physical annihilation which is then associated with the direct risk of war, so that if something happens As an emergency, conventional IES insurance companies that are willing to take on some level of this risk are providing products that are probably three to five times higher than what they should have been before, so if If you want to insure the property, you must pay a premium three times higher than before the war and then, if you want to insure, for example, the ship with grain, it is a storydifferent because there is also a higher risk of the missile hitting it and then requiring additional safeguards because of the way the insurance is secured.

The way the market works is that whoever sells you the insurance evaluates the risk and says that the risk is then they try to resell it for five and get a margin of five and then they look for a buyer of this risk in a larger portfolio and then they try to add some more incentives to smooth out this risk, so that's where you can start having reinsurance companies that re-insure your risk and also sell it and eventually at the end of this chain there should be someone who backs the risk; It's basically free money, so it should be the deposit of funds.

Untouchable unless less occurs this final risk and this back stop is where part of the concessional funds that we receive as macro financial technical support driven by the taxpayers of Europe, the United States and Asia to whom we are extremely grateful or by the Russian assets that are frozen. and then you can just push them directly to close the budget deficit along with giving money to EBRD European Investment Bank DFC I Etc. to finance the private sector and along with that there should be a brake that will ensure this exposure for conventional insurance and the fund itself but with slightly different rules because there are different types of risk there must exist for political risk insurance for war Risk insurance of your investment here relatively we have some movements and then there are institutions that are selling political risk insurance as an instrument there are national agencies local companies such as export credit agencies or governments are delegating some companies to manage their insurance products for PWC finance in Germany manage the war Risk insurance for German investors who come to Ukraine can purchase the insurance and can guarantee the return of your investment, so if you have invested 10 million euros and then you get around 20% return on investment, it will take you five years to recover the money and then if in one year you do not recover 2 million, which is your plan but you get one and a half you will have 90% of the half million compensated that is how insurance works properly for investment insurance you have property insurance that is a different thing you simply get the money to restore your property but in order to scale it you need to have a backup fund.

This could be part of the Ukraine facility Pro program that Europe is implementing where they have 8 billion earmarked for private sector support. Ideally, they would come in a number of instruments that we should communicate in concessional loans that will then allow money to be given not at the market rate because currently the euro and US dollars are very expensive. due to inflation processes and even local Ukrainian banks can get 5.6% per year, so some part should go to concessional financing, so they could get a lower price than 65% per year, the other part should go towards capital support for private equity.

The funds are perhaps also channeled through DFIs and then the part should go into guarantees for the insurance pool, which should then reinsure all other risks and then the exposure should be redistributed across the entire network of insurance and financial companies and insurance associates and then it will scale and then the capital will flow and if the capital flows then the capital is multiplied with the leverage with the loan, so normally you bring 20 30% of the capital and you get 70% of your loan now it is you sell 50/50 because of risks, but you still just double your capital because of that, so no, absolutely thanks for this crash course in investor economics just to finish, so what are for you the biggest challenges in the next year and how will you face them? the possible absence of international support, so we should count on ourselves more, which is not an easy task because the economy is recovering, it is on the positive path but it is not recovering so massively, 3.4%, for which is not 5.10% after having lost. 30% correct and we need to have a little more protection to break this cycle, so I am afraid that we could have unstable support and this unstable support will slow down economic growth and could eventually make some of the Ukrainian companies and investors to the decision of who no longer want to stay in Ukraine, so some of the businessmen are already looking to expand in the European markets and once they get the critical mass of their turnover which will be greater than that of Ukraine, they will focus more on I have nothing in against in the long term because this strengthens Ukrainian companies internationally and with the course of integration in the European Union this makes a lot of sense, but in this scenario I prefer to have all investors because their taxes matter a lot or should we build a model which then allows us to collect most of the taxes that they are going to collect from sales elsewhere, we should not lose them because otherwise we will just lose everything, Alexander, is there anything?

We haven't talked about that, you think it's important for international listeners to understand especially, so the NGO that is supported by USAID right now we work with them as a major donor, what we do is we are professional investment bankers , private equity types like the big ones. four professionals gr Specialists we know how to do business in the country we know how to choose projects that is why we provide free help to Ukrainian companies where we help them learn how to attract capital how to attract international partners we are on the edge of Ukraine businesses that come to The Wider Horizons we love them prepared we want you to know how to work with international suppliers and partners and how to work with capital we maintain the database of feasible investment projects that we constantly update, so if you are looking for Investment objective in Ukraine, there you go, you can apply, so we welcome you Alexander, thank you very much for your time, it was really fascinating, thank you, thank you Ukraine, the latest is an original Telegraph podcast to keep you up to date with everything. of our Ukraine news analysis and ground dispatches subscribe to the Telegraph, you can get your first three months for just 1 at www.telegraph.co.uk for Ukraine thelatest or subscribe to dispatches for our world affairs newsletter bringing stories from our reward.

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