membership

As Brussels pushes ahead with a new wave of enlargement, the numbers behind Europe’s trade with its candidate countries reveal a story of dependence, asymmetry, but also a large, untapped potential.

The official EU candidates are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Kosovo is treated as a potential candidate.

Together, they cover a diverse sweep of geography from long Adriatic coastlines to lush forests and some of Europe’s most productive farmland — also including some of Europe’s youngest populations.

But while trade flows between the bloc and future members are booming, the relationship remains unequal, with more EU-produced goods finding a market than those stemming from potential member states.

A relationship measured in billions

According to the European Commission’s 2025 Western Balkans trade factsheet, total trade in goods between the EU and the six Western Balkan partners reached €83.6 billion in 2024, up 28.6% since 2021.

Exports from the EU to the region stood at €49.06bn, while imports from the Western Balkans came to €34.52bn, leaving Brussels with a €14.54bn trade surplus.

The EU’s dominance as a market is overwhelming. It accounts for around 62% of all Western Balkan trade, whereas the region represents barely 1.7% of the EU’s external trade.

For Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania, between two-thirds and three-quarters of all exports go to EU countries.

“All (candidate) countries, with the curious exception of North Macedonia, have persistent trade deficits with the EU, meaning they import more from the EU than they export there,” explained Branimir Jovanović, an expert with The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW).

“These are economies with small productive sectors. They do not produce enough of what they need, so they have to import, and they also do not produce enough to export,” Jovanović continued.

Over the past decade, North Macedonia has become a production base for components that go straight into EU industry that qualify for preferential access to the EU market under the Stabilisation and Association framework (SAA).

The result is that North Macedonia can sell a relatively high share of what it makes directly into the EU without being blocked by technical standards.

This is very different from, say, Albania, which leans more on raw materials and low-value textiles, or Montenegro, which is tourism-heavy and import-dependent in goods.

It is also different from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which still import a lot of higher-value machinery from the EU and then export a more mixed, lower-value basket back.

Ukraine and Moldova import high-value EU machinery, vehicles and industrial equipment, while exporting mainly lower-margin goods. In essence, they supply raw materials and basic products, and the EU supplies the technology to produce them.

Barriers to trade

The Western Balkans trade with the EU under SAAs, which gradually remove tariffs and align national laws with EU rules as part of the formal accession process. By contrast, Ukraine and Moldova operate under Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs), broader deals that open large parts of the EU single market in exchange for adopting much of the EU’s regulatory framework.

In essence, SAAs are a pathway to membership, while DCFTAs offer deep EU market integration without full membership. This distinction has, however, become blurred — with Brussels indicating that it believes in full membership for Ukraine and Moldova after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Countries exporting to the EU face many barriers aside from tariffs. Economists call these technical barriers to trade, such as phytosanitary standards,” Jovanović explained.

So even if they produce something that there is a demand for in the EU, it never reaches those markets because these companies might not have the necessary certificates.

“So, although unemployment has decreased, there is no real progress in development. There is also a real risk of a middle-income trap, in the sense that these economies remain assembly-line economies, with low wages and limited technological development and innovation.”

The same debate now extends to Ukraine, which formally opened EU accession talks in 2024. Despite the war, trade between the EU and Ukraine has surged. Eurostat data shows the bloc exported €42.8bn worth of goods to Ukraine in 2024 and imported €24.5bn, yielding a €18.3bn surplus for the EU.

The composition of that trade has shifted dramatically since the Russian invasion. Agricultural commodities still dominate Ukrainian exports such but the EU has become its conduit for reconstruction materials and machinery.

Neighbouring Moldova, another candidate country since 2023, shows similar patterns. The EU is Moldova’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 54% of its total trade in goods in 2024. Some 65.6% of Moldovan exports head to the EU.

Trade turnover reached about €7.5bn last year, with EU exports to Moldova amounting to €5.1bn and imports to €2.4bn.

EU standards, a distant dream?

The Western Balkans have made solid progress since the early 2000s, but full convergence with the European Union remains a distant goal, warned the OECD’s Economic Convergence Scoreboard for 2025.

The six economies have more than doubled their output in two decades — yet the region still only reaches about 40% of the EU average. At current growth rates, full convergence won’t arrive until 2074.

The region’s output per person (in purchasing-power parity terms) has more than doubled in 20 years, showing real improvement in productivity, investment, and living standards.

That means the Western Balkans are closing the gap, but painfully slowly, and the strong growth rates are offset by the much higher productivity and capital stock inside the EU.

Growth, on its own, is not enough for convergence. The Western Balkans need qualitatively different growth which is driven by innovation, skills, and higher-value industries.

Infrastructure and productivity are the region’s weakest links.

According to the OECD report: “The insufficient quality and coverage of core public transport infrastructure can be a significant obstacle to higher economic growth…as inadequate transport networks can severely constrain the connectivity of producers and consumers to global and regional markets.”

With regard to Ukraine, its economy has adapted after a historic shock, but the damage is staggering. Much of the population has been displaced and large swathes of infrastructure have been destroyed.

Output fell –28.8% in 2022 and rebounded +5.5% in 2023. Public finances are being stretched to the limit by defence needs, hindering convergence with EU member states.

Foreign investment: Friend or foe?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) brings factories and jobs to candidate countries, as well as building stronger links with existing EU member states. Even so, Jovanović argued that this has not led to “structural transformation” in the candidate nations.

The pattern is visible, for example, in Serbia — where car plants are boosting employment but the country is still importing high-tech machinery.

When FDI concentrates in lower-value stages of production and local supplier bases remain thin, wage gains are limited and more value is captured abroad.

“There is a duality in how FDI is perceived: politicians still see it as the key — sometimes even the only way — to develop the economy, while people are increasingly seeing it as a vicious circle,” said Jovanović.

“Hence, a change in the economic model is long overdue — with a more selective approach towards FDI, focusing on high-quality and high-tech investment and a greater focus on domestic companies through industrial and innovation policies,” Jovanović added.

The argument is clear: while FDI raises employment and links these economies to EU markets, it becomes transformative only when it upgrades the local production base.

Otherwise, candidate countries risk remaining an assembly platform rather than a full partner in Europe’s value chains.

A test of Europe’s promise

In the end, the numbers tell both a success story and a warning. They show integration without transformation: Exports are up, factories are open, but productivity and infrastructure still lag.

The next phase will need to hinge on quality, not just quantity, say experts. This means selective FDI that upgrades supply chains, targeted single-market access tied to reforms, and faster investment in skills, energy, and transport.

If Brussels and the candidates can shift from assembly to innovation, the gap can narrow within a generation. If not, the candidate countries risk remaining a dependable workshop rather than a prosperous partner.

Ex-Labour MP Zarah Sultana has accused Jeremy Corbyn of overseeing a “sexist boys’ club” locking women out of the founding of a new left-wing party the pair announced earlier this year.

In a statement on social media, Sultana said she had been sidelined by other members of the party’s working group – despite an agreement that she and Corbyn would jointly authorise key steps.

He comments come after Your Party supporters got an email on Tuesday offering £55 memberships only for Corbyn to later dismisses it as “unauthorised” – telling supporters he was seeking legal advice.

Sultana said she had launched the membership website “in line with the road map” set out by the party officials.

Before her statement, Sultana had been posting on social media throughout the morning encouraging people to sign up at cost of £55 for full membership.

Sultana had claimed more than 20,000 people had signed up – meaning the new party could have raised more than £1m in a single morning.

In her statement she said: “My sole motivation has been to safeguard the grassroots involvement that is essential to building this party.

“Unfortunately, I have been subjected to what can only be described as a sexist boys’ club: I have been treated appallingly and excluded completely.

“They have refused to allow any other women with voting rights on the Working Group, blocking the gender-balanced committee that both Jeremy and I signed up to.”

Before her statement, Corbyn put out a conflicting statement alongside Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain, Iqbal Mohamed and Shockat Adam – members of the Independent Alliance of MPs who are founding the new party. Sultana’s name was conspicuously missing.

The statement supporters on Wednesday morning that an “unauthorised email” had been sent promoting a membership portal under a new domain name.

They urged backers to ignore the message and cancel any direct debits that may have been set up.

The row is the latest falling out at the top of the new group that has yet to be named or hold an annual conference.

In July, has announced she is resigning from the party, saying she will be founding a new party with Corbyn. A move that took Corbyn and others involved in the project by surprise.

Walmart will soon expand its streaming offerings to its subscription members, with the retail giant announcing a new partnership with NBCUniversal’s Peacock on Monday.

Starting Sept. 15, Walmart+ subscribers can choose to receive ad-supported versions of Peacock Premium or Paramount+ as part of their membership. Every 90 days, Walmart+ members can switch between the two services.

“The additional option of Peacock Premium adds even more value and more choice to our membership, without raising the price,” said Deepak Maini, senior vice president of Walmart+, in a statement. “This is just one of the many ways we’re evolving Walmart+ to meet the needs and wants of today’s consumer.”

The move could appeal to consumers who feel overwhelmed by the different streaming choices and give them a chance to sample what each platform offers without dealing with additional cost.

Walmart+, which charges $98 for an annual plan, includes free shipping, free same-day delivery on groceries and prescriptions, gas discounts and other benefits. Adding more streaming content could help Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart compete with Amazon Prime, though Walmart does not invest in original content, unlike the Seattle e-commerce behemoth.

Walmart declined to say how many people subscribe to Walmart+.

In 2020, Walmart launched Walmart+, which competes with Amazon’s $139 annual Prime membership. Prime offers perks such as free shipping and streaming series such as “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “Reacher,” action movie “The Pickup” and NFL football games.

Last week, Amazon announced that Peacock Premium Plus, the streaming service’s ad-free version, would be available on Prime Video for an additional fee, along with 100 other subscription options in the U.S. Amazon also said it had a multiyear deal for the Peacock app to be available on its Fire TV in the U.S.

Walmart has had a spotty track record on its own streaming efforts and currently does not have its own streaming service or produce its own originals. In 2010, Walmart purchased video-on-demand service Vudu and in 2018 partnered with MGM to create original programming for the platform. The retailer later sold Vudu to Fandango in 2020.

Before that, Walmart launched a web store to sell movie and TV show downloads but shut it down in less than a year after its partner, Hewlett-Packard Co., discontinued the technology for the site after it underperformed.

Unite says it has suspended Angela Rayner from her membership of the union, amid a deepening row over the long-running bin strikes in Birmingham.

The deputy prime minister has been urging striking bin workers to accept a deal to end the dispute, which has seen mountains of rubbish pile up in the city.

The union said it would also re-examine its relationship with Labour after an emergency motion at its conference in Brighton.

Bin collection workers walked out in January, with an all-out strike going on since March. Unite is a major donor to the Labour Party, and has previously donated to Rayner herself.

In 2022, Robert Ellis pledged $200,000 to create a garden in the Los Angeles Zoo’s bird theater.

By January, the city of Los Angeles had sued its nonprofit partner, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., amid longstanding tensions over spending and other issues.

Ellis, a GLAZA board member, redirected his donation to a fund for the nonprofit’s legal fees.

At stake in the messy divorce between the city and the association is a nearly $50-million endowment that each side claims is theirs and that funds much of the zoo’s special projects, capital improvements and exhibit construction.

The city’s contract with GLAZA, which governs fundraising, special events and more, ends Tuesday, leaving the zoo in a precarious place, with no firm plan for how to proceed.

The elephant exhibit is empty after the last two Asian elephants, Billy and Tina, were transferred to the Tulsa Zoo.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

The zoo, which houses more than 1,600 animals, has become increasingly dilapidated. Exhibits including the lions, bears, sea lions and pelicans have closed because they need major renovations. The last two elephants, Billy and Tina, recently departed for the Tulsa Zoo after decades of campaigning by animal rights advocates over living conditions and a history of deaths and health challenges.

The 59-year-old zoo, which occupies 133 acres in the northeast corner of Griffith Park, is struggling to maintain its national accreditation, with federal regulators finding peeling paint and rust in some exhibits.

U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors and the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums found a “critical lack of funding and staffing to address even the most basic repairs,” L.A. Zoo officials wrote in a budget document in November 2024.

A sign designating a closed exhibit is posted in an animal enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Meanwhile, attendance has declined to a projected 1.5 million visitors in 2024-25, down about 100,000 from the previous year, the zoo said, citing “outdated infrastructure” and closed exhibits as part of the reason.

“We’re not vibrant like we should be,” said Karen Winnick, president of the city Board of Zoo Commissioners.

GLAZA has been the zoo’s main partner since it opened in 1966, handling fundraising, special events, membership, publications, volunteers and sponsorship.

The zoo’s $31-million operating budget comes largely from tickets and other sources, with only 1% to 2% directly from the association, according to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo.

But the indirect amount is higher, since GLAZA raises money through membership and special events, depositing some of it in a fund that covers most of the zoo’s budget.

Outside of the operating budget, the group also raises money for facility renovations and programs such as animal care, conservation and education.

Through a spokesperson, Ellis and other GLAZA board members declined to comment.

Devin Donahue, a lawyer for GLAZA, said in a statement that the nonprofit “spent more than 60 years building up an eight-figure endowment that the City of Los Angeles is now attempting to seize without concern for the intent of the donors who chose to give to a trusted charity, and not to a city running a billion-dollar deficit. To remove GLAZA’s safeguarding hand from Zoo funding would be catastrophic for both the LA Zoo and its animals.”

A flamingo basks in water at the Los Angeles Zoo.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

One GLAZA insider blamed the conflicts on Zoo Director and CEO Denise Verret, saying she has tried to take power away from the association since she assumed the role in 2019.

Another source familiar with the relationship said that zoo officials believe they don’t need GLAZA and have wanted to end the partnership for years.

“They [the city] believe they could do this on their own,” said the second source, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the partnership amid the ongoing litigation. “There’s a lot of animosity, as opposed to it being a healthy relationship or one of gratitude.”

The relationship between the zoo and GLAZA has been fraught for decades, stemming from issues regarding money and power, said Manuel Mollinedo, who was zoo director from 1995 to 2002.

“They would make the zoo literally beg for money,” Mollinedo said. “The problem with GLAZA is they see themselves as an entity only responsible in answering to themselves. They don’t see themselves as an organization there to support and work with the zoo.”

Mollinedo said he always thought the zoo would be better off taking some power away from GLAZA and instead partnering with different organizations.

GLAZA has accused the zoo of not properly spending the money that the association raises.

“Notwithstanding red flag warnings of disrepair at the Zoo, enclosure and exhibit closures, and troubling risks to the health and safety of the Zoo’s animals, the City has failed to spend money raised by GLAZA and available to it for necessary remediation,” the nonprofit said in court papers.

In 2023, more than 20 years after Mollinedo left the zoo, city officials announced that they would open up “requests for proposals” for organizations interested in performing GLAZA’s functions, in what they described as an effort to promote fairness and transparency and ensure that the zoo was getting the best services.

By initiating the application process, the city showed that it had no interest in continuing its “overarching partnership” with the organization, Erika Aronson Stern, chair of the GLAZA Board of Trustees, said in a letter to Mayor Karen Bass in October.

GLAZA declined to apply and announced that it would be walking away, along with its nearly $50-million endowment.

A giraffe watches as people pass by its enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Some of the endowment money still needed to spent on the zoo, according to donors’ wishes, and GLAZA would transfer that money to the facility — but it refused to cede control of the fund.

Late last year, the city sued the association, arguing that it was the rightful owner of the endowment.

“GLAZA has only been permitted to raise funds on behalf of the City, never on its own exclusive behalf,” wrote Deputy City Atty. Steven Son.

GLAZA said it does have the right to raise funds for itself and asserted that the city has been mismanaging zoo money for years.

Los Angeles Zoo Director Denise Verret stands in front of an area of the zoo slated for redevelopment. The 20-acre expansion would include a new hilltop Yosemite lodge-style California Visitor Center with sweeping views of a 25,000- square-foot vineyard.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Verret, the zoo’s director, spent exorbitant amounts on activities unrelated to the zoo, GLAZA alleged in court documents, including $22,000 on a party celebrating her own appointment in 2019, $13,000 improving her office and $14,000 on the assistant director’s office.

The association also said in court documents that it provided at least $1.7 million at Verret’s request for conservation organizations that are “separate and distinct” from the zoo.

Verret argued in court papers that her use of the money was appropriate. She modernized “1960s-era” administrative offices, and her welcome party helped “strengthen relationships.” Conservation is one of the zoo’s “core purposes,” she said, noting that GLAZA didn’t raise the spending questions until after the city sued.

In a statement, Verret said the zoo is prepared to be on the international stage for the Summer Olympics in 2028.

“With the new structure and … new business partners in place, the L.A. Zoo is in a very healthy place now and continues to focus on its mission,” she said.

As for fundraising, she was less clear.

“Although we are still developing plans to establish a new fundraising model, we are future-focused with our priorities and efforts grounded in the gold-standard care and well-being for the animals at the zoo,” she said.

On Wednesday, a judge ruled that GLAZA cannot solicit donations “that are not for the exclusive benefit of the Los Angeles Zoo” and may not use funds from the endowment without the city’s permission. The question of who controls the endowment is still open.

Donahue, the GLAZA lawyer, called the judge’s ruling “wrong on the law and facts, deeply flawed analytically and not in the best interest of the Zoo, its animals, its donors, or the people of Los Angeles.” He said was confident that an appellate court would reach a different decision.

As the lawsuit moves forward, the City Council is working to approve new contracts with other organizations to handle concessions, memberships and other functions. City employees perform many core jobs, such as feeding and caring for the animals, but volunteers supplied by GLAZA, including the docents that gave tours, played a major role in the zoo’s day-to-day operations.

“It’s really a shame that it has devolved to this point,” said Ron Galperin, a former city controller who conducted a special review of the relationship between the nonprofit and the zoo in 2018 and found it “cumbersome and confusing.”

Galperin has advocated for the zoo to be run as a public-private partnership, with the city leasing the land and animals to an organization like GLAZA that would run it, similar to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art or the Hollywood Bowl.

The city previously explored that option after the 2008 financial crisis, but it was opposed by unions that represent zoo workers, as well as by animal rights activists who believed there would be less transparency surrounding the care of the animals.

About 73% of accredited zoos are managed by non-government entities — 57% by nonprofits and 16% by for-profit organizations, according to a study by the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums.

Winnick, the Zoo Commission president, believes a privately run zoo would raise funds more effectively and save the city money.

“We need new governance for our zoo, and this is the time to do it, with our city overwhelmed by so many problems,” she said. “It would serve people of L.A. and the community for us to go into public-private partnership.”

Instead, the city will run the zoo piecemeal, with at least two organizations taking over what GLAZA once did.

The city recently came to an agreement with SSA Group, LLC to run membership, special events and publications, while The Superlative Group will run sponsorship programs. The city plans to manage volunteers itself.

But the zoo still has not found a fundraising partner.

“For the city to lose a fundraising partner at this point in time, with the deficit we have and visitors we’re expecting to L.A., is sad,” said Richard Lichtenstein, a former member of the GLAZA board and a former zoo commissioner, who said he was speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the association.

“The city does deserve, and its residents deserve, a first-class facility, and without a funding partner, it is difficult to see how the zoo is going to be able to maintain itself as a world-class facility,” he said.

Ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine may soon be under way, but Ukraine’s economic recovery will be hobbled unless the European Union fast-tracks the war-torn country’s membership and provides hundreds of billions of euros’ worth of insurance and investment, experts tell Al Jazeera.

“I think what Ukraine needs is some kind of future where it will have a stable and defendable border, and that will only come, I would think, with EU membership,” historian Phillips O’Brien told Al Jazeera.

The US administration of President Donald Trump last month handed Ukraine and Russia a ceasefire proposal that excluded future NATO membership of Ukraine, satisfying a key Kremlin demand and leaving Ukraine without the security guarantees it seeks.

“What business is actually going to take the risk of getting involved there economically?” asked O’Brien. “With NATO off the table, I think if Ukraine is going to have a chance of rebuilding and being integrated into Europe, it will have to be through a fast-tracked EU membership.”

That membership is by no means assured, although the European Commission started negotiations in record time last June, and Ukraine has the support of EU heavyweights like France and Germany.

If Ukraine becomes an EU member, it would still face a devastated economy requiring vast investment.

The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimated that between Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and November last year, Moscow’s onslaught had destroyed $170bn of infrastructure, with the housing, transport and energy sectors most affected.

That figure did not include the damage incurred in almost a decade of war in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 or the loss of 29 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the invasion in 2022. The estimate also did not put a value on the loss of almost a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, which Russia now occupies.

That territory contains almost half of Ukraine’s unexploited mineral wealth, worth an estimated $12.4 trillion, according to SecDev, a Canadian geopolitical risk firm.

It also does not include some types of reconstruction costs, such as chemical decontamination and mine-clearing.

The World Bank put the cost of infrastructure damages slightly higher this year, at $176bn, and predicts the cost of reconstruction and recovery at about $525bn over 10 years.

‘The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory’

Economic war has been part of Russia’s strategy since the invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014, argued Maximilian Hess, a risk analyst and Eurasia expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory, including for coking coal, agricultural products, and iron,” Hess told Al Jazeera.

The KSE has estimated Russia stole half a million tonnes of grain, included in the $1.9bn damages bill to the agricultural sector.

Using long-range rocketry, Russia also targeted industrial hubs not under its control.

Ukraine inherited a series of factories from the Soviet Union, including the Kharkiv Tractor Plant, the Zaporizhia Automobile Plant, the Pivdenmash rocket manufacturer in Dnipro and massive steel plants.

“All were targeted by Russian forces,” wrote Hess in his recent book, Economic War. “Russia’s attacks were, of course, primarily aimed at devastating the Ukrainian economy and weakening its ability and will to fight, but they also raised the cost to the West of supporting Ukraine in the conflict, something the Kremlin hoped would lead to reduced support for Kyiv.”

Through occupation and targeting, Russia managed to deprive Ukraine of a flourishing metallurgy sector.

According to the United States Geological Survey, metallurgical production decreased by 66.5 percent as a result of the war.

That is a vast loss, considering that Ukraine once produced almost a third of the iron ore in Europe, Russia and Central Eurasia, half of the region’s manganese ore and a third of its titanium. It remains the only producer of uranium in Europe, an important resource in the continent’s quest for greater energy autonomy.

Ukraine’s claims to have built a $20bn defence industrial base with allied help, a rare wartime economic success story.

That can make up for the losses in metallurgy, Hess said, “but only in part and in different regions of the country from which those mining and metallurgical ones were concentrated. Boosting [metallurgical activities] in places like Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and ideally territory ultimately freed from Russian occupation, will be necessary to win the peace.”

Trump’s minerals deal, and other instruments

Weeks ago, Ukraine and the US signed a memorandum of intent to jointly exploit Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

Ukraine committed to putting half the proceeds from its metallurgical activities into a Reconstruction Fund, but experts doubted the notion that mineral wealth can rebuild Ukraine.

“Projects have a long launch period … from five to 10 years,” Maxim Fedoseienko, head of strategic projects at the KSE Institute, told Al Jazeera. “You need to make documentation, environmental impacts assessment, and after that, you can also need three years to build this mine.”

The US and EU might invest in such mines, Fedoseienko said, because “we have more than 24 kinds of materials from the EU list of critical [raw] materials,” but they would only contribute to the Ukrainian economy if investments were equitable.

Trump presented the minerals deal as payback for billions in military aid.

“There’s nothing remotely fair about it. The aid was not given to be paid back,” said O’Brien.

As Fedoseienko put it, “It is not fair if everyone will say, ‘OK, we will help you in a time of war, so you are owned [by] us.’”

In addition to fairness, Ukraine needs money. Some of that needs to come in the form of insurance.

A state-backed war-risk insurance formula Kyiv reached with the United Kingdom in 2023, for example, brought bulk carriers back to Ukraine’s ports and defeated Russian efforts to blockade Ukrainian grain exports.

As a result, Ukraine exported 57.5 million tonnes of agricultural goods in 2023-2024, and was on track to export 77 million tonnes in the 2024-2025 marketing year, which ends in June, its agriculture ministry said.

“There needs to be a substantial expansion of public insurance products in particular, as well as a move to seize frozen Russian assets,” said Hess.

Seizing some $300bn in Russian central bank money held in the EU was deemed controversial, but the measure is now receiving support.

“The Russian state has committed these war crimes, has broken international law, has done this damage to Ukraine –  that actually becomes a just way of helping Ukraine rebuild,” said O’Brien. “[Europeans] have a very strong case for this, but they, right now, lack the political will to do it.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already repeatedly asked Europe to use the money for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction.

What Europeans have done in the meantime is going some way towards rebuilding Ukraine.

Some $300m in interest payments proceeding from Russian assets are diverted to reconstruction each year.

A European Commission programme provides 9.3 billion euros ($10.5bn) of financial support designed to leverage investment from the private sector.

Financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank are providing loan guarantees to Ukrainian banks, which gives them liquidity.

“So Ukrainian banks can provide loans to Ukrainian companies to invest and operate in Ukraine. This is a big ecosystem to finance investment and operational needs to the Ukrainian economy,” said Fedoseienko.

Together with the finance ministry, the KSE operates an online portal providing information about the various instruments available, which has already helped bring 165 investments to fruition worth $27bn.

“Is it enough to recover the Ukrainian economy?” Fedoseienko asked. “No, but this is a significant programme to support Ukraine now.”