The Ukraine Recovery Conference, which took place on 21-22 June 2023 in London, a continuation of its predecessor - the URC 2022 in Lugano, gathered many times more participants and friends of Ukraine who are ready to work together to rebuild it after the war. A spectacular 1,000 public and private sector decision makers attended, from 59 countries, 33 international organisations, over 400 businesses and 130 civil society organisations.

The whole world was waiting for the decisions to be made, and their eyes were on Ukraine. Let's take a closer look at what we can expect in the coming year.  

The war is not over yet and its consequences are catastrophic. We should not normalize war by taking a stand on immediate rebuilding while the western countries are not doing enough to ban Russian fossil fuels from export. To begin a full and effective green reconstruction of Ukraine, we need to stop destruction and death on a massive scale by cutting off Russia's financial flows from the sale of fossil fuels. 

Read our latest sanction reports here and here. 

TOTAL Energies, BP and Shell still own significant parts of Russian oil and gas companies and projects and Their profits hit $39.9bn (£32.2bn) in 2022, double the previous year's total and continue profiting on the Russian war against Ukraine in 2023.

All Russian assets abroad, massive profits of fossil fuel companies and financial institutions from their continued bloody business in Russia have to be confiscated to rebuild Ukraine on clean energy.

In the meantime, more investments to come

Ukraine’s partners have agreed to provide a further $60bn to meet the recovery and reconstruction needs of Ukraine. The EU announced a new multi-year facility of up to €50bn for recovery, reconstruction and modernisation. The US announced $1.3bn in additional aid to Ukraine, including $675m to modernize Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. The UK announced a further $3bn in guarantees to support additional World Bank lending up to 2027, and £240m of support for immediate needs. Switzerland announced a further CHF1.5bn of support to 2027. The Multi-Agency Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine will continue to support the alignment of donor commitments to early recovery priorities and reform.

All this money must serve to restore social, economic, environmental and climate justice for Ukrainians, create decent green jobs and not be diverted to boost new oil and gas reserves.

Nearly 500 global businesses from 42 countries worth more than $5.2 trillion and 21 sectors have already signed the Ukraine Business Compact, pledging to support Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction.

Poland, Latvia, Germany, and France will grant funds aimed at rehabilitating critical infrastructure, providing additional equipment

Canada announced grants of $10 million to support flood victims after the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP and $20 million for long-term projects related to the impacts of climate change, as well as to promote gender equality in society.

International financial institutions accumulate even more funds  

The EBRD reiterated its intention to raise €3-5bn of new capital from shareholders. 

G7 and European Development Finance Institutions launched a new Ukraine Investment Platform, in partnership with the EBRD, that will promote co-investments to maximize the impact of their support. 

The International Finance Corporation, the US International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC), and British Investment International, signed a landmark deal to support the IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program to help keep cross border trade lines open. USDFC also announced a further $20m loan guarantee to Bank Lviv to support SMEs.

Energy as the key point

The Ukrainian Government presented to international partners its ambitious goals to make Ukraine the energy hub of Europe by 2050. More than $400 billion will be invested in the energy sector. The government plans to decommission coal-fired thermal power plants by 2035 and replace them with natural gas and biomethane power plants; to build 38.2 GW of energy storage systems. Gas production will increase by 4 times to 80 billion cubic metres per year and gas exports will amount to 66 billion cubic metres per year. Oil production will increase by 6.7 times to 15 million tonnes. Oil refining will amount to 11 million tonnes. 

The Minister of Energy presented the new Energy Strategy until 2050. According to the Ministry of Energy, the strategy's investment opportunities for new energy capacities amount to $383 billion. This includes $134 billion for wind generation, $62 billion for solar generation, $72 billion for hydrogen technologies, $80 billion for nuclear generation, $5 billion for transmission systems, and $4.5 billion for hydropower. By 2050, Ukraine has the potential to increase wind generation capacity to 140 GW, solar generation to 94 GW, energy storage to 38 GW, nuclear generation to 30 GW, CHP and bioenergy capacity to 18 GW, and hydropower generation to 9 GW.

As a result of the Conference the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide support to the Ukrainian energy sector with EUR 600 million (relevant memorandum between Bank and Ukrhydroenergo, NPC Ukrenergo and Naftogaz was signed). The EBRD's memorandum with Naftogaz envisages three main areas of cooperation: the formation of strategic natural gas reserves, investments to decarbonise and reduce methane emissions, and investments to improve energy efficiency. Another memorandum concerns support for Ukrenergo. The goal is to provide resources to the company to cover critical expenses.

G7+ governments committed to develop a new Clean Energy Partnership with Ukraine to accelerate the transition to a green energy system that is secure, sustainable, resilient and integrated with Europe. The US announced $520m to help overhaul Ukraine’s energy grid. Ukraine’s partners announced new investments in the International Finance Corporation's Economic Resilience Action Programme.

New initiatives 

The Conference launched: 

• the London Conference War Risk Insurance Framework. The Ukrainian government committed to sharing detailed information with the insurance industry to enable effective and targeted risk modeling to rebuild its commercial insurance market. The top international Marsh McLennan company will work with the Ukrainian government and insurers to create a platform that provides the data needed for assessment of war risks in Ukraine, which will better position the industry to start offering commercial insurance cover, thus unlocking investable capital. This will provide access to the necessary data to allow insurers to assess risks meaningfully and enhance their willingness to enter the market.
• the Innovate Ukraine Green Energy Challenge Fund. The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine and the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs have signed a memorandum on energy partnership in the amount of 62 million pounds. This includes technical cooperation, ODA grants, and trade and investment facilitation in areas such as small modular nuclear power plants, green hydrogen and other renewable gases, solar micro/mini-grids, solar systems for small households, energy efficiency, onshore and offshore wind energy, the development of the carbon market and others. The British side will support the Ministry of Energy under the new Clean Energy Partnership and continue to support the Ukraine Resilience and Energy Security (URES) programme, which will focus on rebuilding infrastructure in an environmentally friendly and energy efficient way.
• the Ukraine Energy Initiative, a Ukrainian energy initiative that will bring together partners to create a broad industry coalition to accelerate the recovery of Ukraine's energy sector. The initiative is part of a new digital platform to connect UK and Ukrainian businesses.

The Conference also supported the introduction by the Council of Europe ‘Registry of Damages Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine’ which is a legal entity under the national law of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Ukraine with the following functions: to receive and process information on damage claims and evidence; to classify and organize such claims; to assess and determine the eligibility of such claims for inclusion in the Register; to record the eligible claims for the purposes of their future examination and adjudication. 

Further decisions and steps from international partners will be appreciated and continued during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in 2024, which will be hosted by Germany.