When Finnish President Kyösti Kallio  was compelled to sign the harsh   Moscow Peace Treaty  in March 1940 , he quoted from the   Book of Zechariah : "May my hand, which is forced to sign such a paper, wither.” That summer, his right arm became paralysed, and he died following a stroke in December 1940 . After the Moscow Armistice in 1944 , Finland lost about 11% of its territory, over 1% of its population was killed, and 15% were relocated. After almost 11 years o f resistance to the Russian invasion and 3 years of full-scale aggression, Ukraine has survived and is holding on. The sharp turn in US policy by Donald Trump's Republican administration could offer a chance to suspend military action. But it will come with a bitter taste for Ukraine as Washington pushes to accept sacrifices prioritising renewed relations with Russia. According to the Ukrainian magazine Forbes,   since 2022 , Ukraine has lost: 22% of its economy and 11% of the territory (19% since 2014); 20% of agri-production and 65% of metallurgical facilities; 45% of electricity generation and 19% of IT exports (in real terms) and 15% of the Ukrainian population, which has relocated abroad. It is widely believed that the grit and courage of Finland’s resistance  convinced Stalin that incorporating Finland into the Soviet Union or transforming it into a Communist client state would be more trouble than it was worth. This led to Stalin’s eventual agreement to sign a peace treaty with Finland in 1944 in exchange for additional territory and a commitment from Helsinki to remain neutral. Thus, Finland became the only part of the former Russian Empire that was not reinstalled into the Soviet Union. Finland  developed as a prosperous Western democracy and was able to join the European Union and then NATO. It has long had one of the world’s highest per capita GDPs, scoring 100% on Freedom House’s Democracy  Index  (the US scores 84). Ukraine’s future after the war will be in the hands of its people. It would be for them to prove that the heroism and sacrifices of heroes who stopped Russian troops with the price of their lives weren't in vain.

Since the start of 2025, the composite Wig-Ukraine index of Ukrainian companies on the Warsaw Stock Exchange has risen by 65%.  The STOXX Europe 600, a broad measure of the European equity market, increased by 9%, while the key US stock indices, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite, declined by 2% and 5%, respectively. The price rise for Ukrainian and European assets primarily reflects expectations that the Russian war against Ukraine will soon end. The US economy is on the verge of significant rebalancing reform, and investors are frightened by uncertainty over the ‘readiness of China and the United States for war’ In 1907, British scientist Francis Galton made an intriguing discovery at the Cattle and Poultry Exhibition in the West of England. Eight hundred people purchased tickets for a contest to predict the weight of a bull. Many of the 800 participants were not knowledgeable about cattle. Surprisingly, the average valid estimate from the 787 participants was 1,198 pounds, which closely matched the actual weight of the bull, recorded at 1,197 pounds. When the crowd is neither rebellious nor blinded by groupthink, it demonstrates greater intelligence than the most exceptional individual. The stock markets always look ahead, and often, market expectations exceed those of opinion polls. If we believe in this, the denouement might be close.

Over 200,000 American military personnel are deployed overseas,  most of them in allied nations. The US spends over $60 billion annually on this forward posting,  not including combat operations. Empirical studies have shown that the United States military presence in third countries positively impacts hosts’ economic growth. A significant US military contingent usually brings stability and additional orders to the local economy . However, one crucial prerequisite, supported by the research, is that the host country must voluntarily allow military presence and bases . It is difficult to predict the arrangements and post-war dynamics following the eventual cessation of large-scale fighting resulting from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, it is evident that if Ukraine’s allies elect to bolster their military and economic presence in the country to ensure peace, this would be welcomed by the population and would benefit Ukraine’s economy. Support for NATO, effectively the US/EU/UK military alliance, rose among Ukrainians to nearly 80% in 2023  from about 30% in the mid-1990s. Notably, most nations that host Russian bases ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_military_bases_abroad ) have problems with sustainable economic development, not to mention the presence of sound democratic rule. And the withdrawal of Russian troops often coincides with the acceleration of economic growth, like in Eastern Europe and Vietnam.

President Donald Trump noted   a potential deal to grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth metals (REM) in exchange for continued military and economic aid to Kyiv, which aligns with President Zelensky's “Peace plan.” Interest in Ukraine’s REM from its closest allies is not new. In 2021, the EU and Ukraine initiated a strategic partnership on raw materials to achieve closer integration in value chains. The two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding and approved an initial roadmap . According to the documents, Ukraine possesses essential deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals critical to the European Union, including titanium, manganese, zirconium, and graphite. In February 2023, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers approved a list of 26 strategic subsoil sites   essential for economic development and defence capability. These sites contain mineral deposits of scandium, tantalum, niobium, lithium, titanium, uranium, and other valuable fossil minerals. As in maths, securing strategic partners to gain an economic foothold in Ukraine is essential but insufficient to alter the country's trajectory towards quicker growth. A strong rule of law, robust democratic institutions, and a well-developed civil society must be prioritised alongside solid security guarantees. Regardless of how distant these elements may seem from the current state of war, aligning all factors correctly and adding a dash of good fortune could enable Ukraine to achieve tremendous progress swiftly. This is precisely what Putin’s killing machine is fiercely fighting against.

In a recent move, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine has drafted a bill that enables the transfer of all uranium mining licences in Ukraine and the subsequent corporatisation of the state-owned Eastern Mining and Processing Plant (VostGOK) to tender it further to “a strategic investor.” VostGOK  is Ukraine's largest and oldest uranium mining and initial processing site, operating since 1946. This critical step could be an essential breakthrough in using Ukraine's uranium resources in cooperation with global players. According to the 2022 edition of the IAEA’s Red Book,  Ukraine has uranium resources of 185,400 tU, with 71,800 tU of these recoverable at under $80/kgU. These are by far the largest developed deposit in Europe. Ukrainian uranium deposits are proven to be enough to fuel the existing country’s 15 nuclear reactors for many decades at an affordable cost. Still, the inefficiency of state management, corruption, and underinvestment kept Ukrainian uranium production on hold. Production had been below 800 tonnes annually—around 30% of the country's requirements for many years. Since 2022, production has even declined . In 2023, Ukraine signed a 12-year deal to buy uranium from Canadian miner Cameco Corp to cover the needs of nuclear reactors and end reliance on Russian nuclear fuel. Under the agreement worth at least $4 billion, Cameco will supply Ukraine with uranium hexafluoride (UF6) from 2024-2035 to end its reliance on Russian fuel. The deal covers the nine reactors under Ukrainian control, with an option to supply six captured reactors in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region after Ukraine retakes them. While Ukraine will rely on Cameco for uranium, it has struck separate deals for further processing with United Kingdom-based Urenco Group to enrich the uranium and with U.S.-based Westinghouse to fabricate it into reactor fuel. Ukraine’s “victory plan” for the incoming Donald Trump administration highlights potential business deals, including access to raw materials.  President Zelensky presented the plan in the autumn of 2024 in the US and the EU capitals. Ukraine is rich in natural resources, including critical metals worth trillions of dollars. Obtaining control over Ukraine's globally significant energy and food production potential was among the key Russian aggressive goals in this war. At the same time, properly using it could be an opportunity for the United States, the EU and G7 partners to provide for  Ukraine’s economic growth and get a solid return on investment. The economic section of Ukraine's “victory plan” has a secret annexe shared with specific interested partners.

Series: Ukraine, Atlas shrugs. Incredibly abundant and awakening Philosopher and historian Giambattista Vico, who was part of the Italian Enlightenment, was arguably the first to state that history does not advance linearly driven by progress but develops in repeating cycles. The Chalcolithic Age (the name is made from two Greek words, "khalkos" and "lithos", meaning copper and stone) about 10,000 years ago marks the beginning of the use of metalwork technology along with stone tools. Copper was one of the first metals humans mastered , shaping coins, jewellery, tools and weaponry that fuelled societal advancement. It looks like the New Copper Age might be coming. According to estimates , Copper could become the “Next oil”  in the next decade or two. Nearly 150 copper occurrences exist  in the Rivne, Zhytomyr, and Volyn regions. It is regarded that Ukraine has about 30 million tonnes of copper in measured and indicated resources. From 2017 to 2021, local and foreign investors were interested in copper mining projects in Ukraine, but political instability, corruption, and Russian aggression made them impossible to implement. Once the Russian war ends and the rule of law inevitably prevails in Ukraine, developing these resources will become an attractive investment.

To paraphrase German theologian  Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller,   “First they came for Georgians, and I did not speak out because it seemed far away.… Then they came for Ukrainians, and I did not speak out because I didn’t want to wake up. Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me…” One of the CIA Principles of Intelligence Analysis is: “understand the full picture.” Last month's seemingly unrelated events suggest that things are going fast in the very wrong direction: Georgia is probably lost for the democratic world  after Russia-rigged elections. Four to six brigades of North Korean troops arrived in Europe and fight Ukrainians just a few days away of forced march to Warsaw or Vilnius. Russian-Iranian UAVs are taping the Lithuanian, Romanian and Polish airspace to target critical infrastructure. Russia has been caught in preparing to place explosive packages to blast civil aeroplanes flying over Europe and the US . Ukraine gets exhausted from almost three years of fighting one-on-one a times bigger Russian villain. Human capital suffers the most,  as 25% (twenty-five per cent!) of the population is lost over the last decade. With the growing self-centrism of the US following the recent elections, “objects in a mirror might be closer than they appear”, and perils are coming closer to everyone's home in Europe. Since February 2022, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine has cost the average EU/UK citizen two cups of coffee per month.  This  is catastrophically insufficient for Ukraine to keep the frontline, not to mention end the war. Attempts to appease Russia led only to tragedies in the past. Don't say later that we didn’t warn you.

The Ukrainian Coordination Centre for Cybersecurity (NCCC), a critical ad-hoc commission for coordination and control in the field of cybersecurity, banned the installation and use of Telegram on the official devices of government officials , military personnel, employees of the security and defence sector, as well as enterprises operating critical infrastructure. There is evidence that Russian special services have access to the personal correspondence of Telegram users, even deleted messages, as well as their personal data. Telegram is actively used by Russia for cyberattacks, spreading phishing and malware, establishing the geolocation of users, geolocation targets for missile strikes, etc. An illustrative story happened meanwhile with a sensitive Telegram chatbot of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine , “Reserve+”, used to exchange data between recruits and the recruitment centre of the Ministry of Defence. The ministry started this tool but abandoned it over time, deleted the account, and left the URL "@reserveplusbot" behind. Immediately, ‘unknown hackers’ took advantage of this and took control of the chatbot. Pretending to be representatives of “Reserve+”, the fraudsters sent messages to recruits calling to install special software. It infected the computers and smartphones with Meduza Stealer malware . This virus can steal personal data from devices, analyse user activity in browsers and carry out attacks based on collected information. Telegram is reported to have been suspiciously slow in closing the fictitious account. Given the scale of use of the application “Reserve+” and the database available on the darknet, the number of victims can be conservatively measured in thousands.

Fifty of Ukraine's largest private companies have invested over Eur 5 billion in their development  since the full-scale Russian invasion. DTEK, Metinvest and MHP are the top three. Russia's invasion led to an avalanche-like decline in FDI inflows from $8 billion in 2021 to $221 million in 2022. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, last year, FDI rebounded to $4.8 billion, with most of this money reinvested by businesses already operating in the country. FDI per capita in Ukraine remains at the lowest level  among Eastern European countries, as Ukraine’s foreign investment policy regime has been less liberalised than of its regional peers. The preconditions for FDI acceleration are the war's end, structural reforms, and NATO/EU security guarantees. While there is a high level of uncertainty about the first and the last, Ukraine has made meaningful progress in reforms over the previous ten years.

In September, the Strategic Investment Council of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine  approved the outline of the Project Portfolio for Public Investment. The portfolio includes 750 healthcare, education, transport, and energy investment projects worth over $55 billion. In 2025, the projects will attract around $5,6 billion, including about $4 billion of grants, state-backed loans, and guarantees from international financial organisations and donors. The major financial providers will be the EIB, EBRD, IBRD and foreign governments. The investment projects will be monitored through the publicly available integrated management system DREAM  to ensure compliance and integrity during the selection, preparation and implementation. Entrypoint's team is proud to have been already engaged in preparing several reconstruction projects in construction and energy.