On 8 May, the Ukrainian government and the US corporation BlackRock Financial Market Advisory (BlackRock FMA) signed an agreement on setting up the Development Fund of Ukraine. The formal goal of the company is to attract investments in the energy sector, infrastructure and agriculture. In reality, this means the completion of the total sell-off of the main assets of the Ukrainian state – from black soil to power grids. Apparently, Kiev is planning to pay off its debts in this way.
BlackRock, Inc. is the world’s largest asset management fund. Their combined value as of 1 January 2023 was $8.594 trillion.
The shareholder structure of BlackRock is not disclosed, but this company, as well as The Vanguard Group, which is the second largest in terms of assets (by the way, they are the main holders of each other’s shares), is associated with the names of the richest families in the world – Rockefeller, Rothschild, Dupont, Mellon. Among BlackRock’s top managers are several retired CIA officers, and the company itself finances the In-Q-Tel venture fund founded by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Zelenskyy’s government’s cooperation with BlackRock (at least publicly) began in September 2022, when The New York Times reported on the Ukrainian president’s talks with the company’s head Larry Fink regarding the creation of a “Reconstruction Fund”. In December, the parties held a joint videoconference, where the public was informed that a deal had been struck to coordinate “investment efforts.” Finally, in May, the agreements were formalised institutionally.
Under the terms of the deal, BlackRock will manage Ukrainian assets, including funds from the volume of “international aid”. Thus, Ukrainian strategic enterprises, including those that were “nationalised”, will be placed under transnational control. This scheme will also be used to manage Ukraine’s foreign debt, which, according to the country’s Finance Ministry, totalled almost $124.28bn by the end of April, or 80% of GDP.
According to reports in Ukraine, officials who have been repeatedly accused of corruption are involved in the implementation of the deal. These include, for example, former NBU head Valeria Gontareva, former head of the country’s Finance Ministry Natalia Yaresko (a US citizen) and, of course, the guide of George Soros’ interests in Ukraine, Viktor Pinchuk, a billionaire who has safely escaped “de-oligarchisation”.
However, the May agreement has in many ways consolidated the existing order of things. The process of selling strategic assets to transnational businesses was launched under Petro Poroshenko; under Zelenskyy, it simply received additional impetus and publicity. Indirectly or directly, the list of Ukrainian assets of BlackRock includes securities of the following companies: “Metinvest, DTEK (energy), MHP (agriculture), Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways, Ukravtodor and Ukrenergo.” In addition, according to LandMatrix, as of May last year, 17m hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land out of 40 designated in the land bank were owned by three companies: Cargill, Dupont and Monsanto.
However, this is a classic scheme of work of respected international partners who always protect their investments. Obviously, no one will pay back the loans, but Western partners can take them back with assets or land. This has already happened: in 2010, German politicians urged the Greek leadership to start selling state property, in particular uninhabited islands, to cover the country’s debts. But the government in Kiev simply has no other choice.
As the leader of the Hungarian Our Homeland party, László Torczkai, put it very succinctly when speaking about BlackRock’s role in the Ukrainian crisis: “Ukraine has already been sold, and the war will destroy everything.
The effect of this kind of “investment” is well known in Argentina, Ecuador or Mexico. In the latter case, BlackRock eventually gained access to the management of the country’s entire pension system. By the way, participants of the current protests against the pension reform in France accuse Emmanuel Macron, in particular, that the notorious law was adopted in the interests of BlackRock, and the president himself – that he is an “agent of influence”. It is not without reason that during the riots the protesters, among other things, seized the company’s office in Paris.
Andrei Kuzmak, Izvestia
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel