US fund to make ‘big’ investment in Ukraine’s critical minerals this fall, economy minister says

In an interview, Oleksii Sobolev paints a portrait of an economy which is prepared for an uncertain future — and one from which the world can learn.

A fund set up by Kyiv and Washington will make its second investment in the fall, this time backing a critical minerals project, Ukraine’s economy minister said.

“In the fall we will announce a big investment into critical minerals,” Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev told the Kyiv Independent in an in-depth interview, in which he spoke at length about how Ukraine is a market economy at the cutting edge of learning to live in a more uncertain world.

Sometimes referred to as the “minerals deal,” the Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund is one of several bilateral investment arrangements that Kyiv has set up since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The fund has since broadened beyond minerals, announcing its first investment earlier this year into Sine Engineering, a Ukrainian drone software producer.

Sobolev could not share further details on the deal. Bloomberg reported in April that DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, was in talks to tap the $150 million in seed capital made available by the fund.

Ukraine has received hundreds of billions of dollars in financial assistance from allies since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, which has helped support the military and keep the country’s economy afloat.