The Business of Ukraine Peace Is Business

Trump’s corporate motivations mirror a broader Western coalition that lost billions when Russia sanctions hit

Grüezi!

• Western corporations lost over $500bn in stranded Russian assets when sanctions struck in 2014 and 2022

• ExxonMobil and Rosneft planned $500bn in Arctic and Black Sea ventures before sanctions forced abandonment

• Deutsche Bank laundered $10bn for Russian clients whilst lending Trump $2bn

• Ukraine’s reconstruction needs total $524bn over the next decade

• Erik Prince met a Putin confidant in Seychelles to establish Trump-Kremlin back channels

• Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank earned nearly half its 2024 profits from Russia but cannot repatriate them

Western rhetoric around Ukraine peace negotiations typically invokes high principles – sovereignty, democracy, the rules-based international order.

Beneath those lofty precepts lurks something rather more prosaic: a raft of Western corporations desperate to recoup billions in losses from their Russian ventures.

Donald Trump, with his decades of Russian financial connections, is merely the most visible face of this commercial coalition.