EBRD in Ukraine Monthly

This month an EBRD delegation headed by President Odile Renaud-Basso visited Kyiv to assess the situation on the ground and the changing needs for the EBRD's support. This was the first trip to wartime Kyiv for Arvid Tuerkner , the new Managing Director for Ukraine and Moldova. In the current edition of our newsletter, we feature his insights from the trip.

Shortly after Kyiv, the EBRD participated in the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Berlin, where the Bank signed further funding and support for Ukraine. These bring the Bank's financing for wartime Ukraine to €4.5 billion. And, as Odile and Arvid reiterated in Kyiv and Berlin, the EBRD is ready to do more.

Thank you for reading our thirteenth edition of EBRD in Ukraine Monthly. Scroll down for more news on the EBRD’s activities in the country.

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EBRD experts on Ukraine and its way forward

From the field: Arvid Tuerkner on his first visit to wartime Ukraine

Earlier this month, EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso, Vice President for Banking, Matteo Patrone, and EBRD's Managing Director for Ukraine and Moldova, Arvid Tuerkner, visited Kyiv to get a first-hand update of the situation on the ground, and assess the changing needs for EBRD's support for Ukraine's public and private sectors. While Odile and Matteo visited wartime Kyiv over the last two years, this was a first time visit for Arvid. 

What stood out to you during your first Kyiv trip? Was the experience what you expected?  

It's difficult to describe the experience of travelling to the wartime capital. I really did not know what to expect, despite chatting about it at length with both Odile and Matteo on the road from Lublin to Kyiv. On the positives: we were lucky with the weather, the city truly is alive and beautiful, and despite the war people were genuinely kind and positive. But the signs of war were felt everywhere, be it through power cuts or frequent air raids.  We spent half of our third night in our hotel's bomb shelter. Although it was a one-off experience, it was quite surreal, and was another poignant reminder of what life is like for Ukrainians as a result of Russia's war. 

And what about the business community? What stood out for you in your engagements with clients and partners? 

We met with both our public and private sector clients, as well as NGOs.  

I was impressed by their resilience, energy and determination to continue growing their businesses. Despite the challenges, including those related to human capital and shortage of labour, they continue to plan investment projects and are hopeful for the future. 

At the same time, many pointed to the fact that more efforts are needed - including by international partners - to develop veteran reintegration initiatives, as they are still nascent and below the required scale to address the current and future needs. This makes our work on veteran reintegration that much more timely and important. We have been working with individual clients on workforce management and reskilling, and also support the efforts on a systemic level to help our government partners support returnee workers and veterans to meet the challenges in a wartime labour market.   

Have the EBRD’s priorities for Ukraine changed after this visit? 

All throughout our visit - and in Berlin too - the discussion kept coming back to one topic: energy. Russian attacks on energy facilities have destroyed or damaged more than half of Ukraine's energy generation capacity, so it's very clear that energy needs are vast - both to increase generation (as fast as possible), but also to protect existing infrastructure. We've thus reworked our investment plans - energy is once again our number one priority. To this end, we've committed to provide another €300 million of support to Ukraine's public energy companies. A key component of our crisis response package will be facilitating the construction of new distributed generation facilities. We are also rolling out a dedicated portfolio risk sharing facility through local banks to finance households, SMEs and mid-cap corporates and municipalities to procure renewable and low-carbon power generation, energy storage and energy efficiency equipment. This can help to make sure Ukraine is prepared for the upcoming winter season and is more resilient to these energy shocks.