Blackrock boss working on $800 billion plan for Ukraine’s economy – Witkoff
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has joined US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine team as a “prosperity adviser,” US envoy Steve Witkoff has announced. After a similar project failed last year, Fink will once more be tasked with pulling Western capital into Ukraine.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on Thursday, Witkoff described Fink as “the best-in-class prosperity adviser,” adding that he “was good enough to volunteer for the job.”
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has spoken repeatedly about developing a “prosperity plan,” aimed at attracting $800 billion in foreign investment to Ukraine after a peace agreement with Russia is reached. While Ukrainian officials met with BlackRock executives to discuss this plan last month, it was unclear from reports about the closed-door meeting what level of involvement the firm would take in implementing it.
BlackRock is the world’s largest investment firm, managing more than $12 trillion in assets. BlackRock owns substantial shares in military-industrial giants such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, whose weapons have seen extensive use by Kiev’s forces in the Ukraine conflict.
The firm began work on a Ukraine ‘reconstruction fund’ in 2023, and had trouble attracting investors. According to the New York Times, the firm originally aimed to get $50 billion to $80 billion in investments, before cutting this target down to $15 billion. The fund was shelved indefinitely last year “due to a lack of interest amid increased uncertainty over Ukraine’s future,” Bloomberg reported.
Ukrainian officials met with Fink in Davos on Thursday. According to Ukrainian National Security Council chief Rustem Umerov, the meeting was also attended by EU officials and representatives of major US investment firms, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.
However, investors still face the same uncertainty that led to BlackRock abandoning its original reconstruction fund: Moscow and Kiev are still at odds over the terms of a peace deal, Ukraine has suffered an unknown number of military casualties, Kiev is still entirely dependent on foreign aid to keep its government functioning, and stories of endemic corruption within Zelensky’s circles have dominated headlines recently.
US President Donald Trump has described US investment in Ukraine as vital to recover the massive financial aid provided to Kiev by President Joe Biden’s administration. Earlier this month, Trump told Fox News that his efforts to negotiate a peace deal are contingent on the US securing extraction rights for Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
”I said that if we want to move forward, we need rare earth metals,” he told Fox News. “We want our money back.”
