Ukraine will auction state-owned companies and landmarks this summer in a desperate to raise money to fund its resistance against the Russian invasion.
The Hotel Ukraine, a confiscated shopping centre and Europe’s biggest titanium miner are among 19 large assets set to go up for sale to plug a £3.9bn gap in the country’s defence budget.
Kyiv hopes to be able to bring in £80mn by the end of 2024 by drastically slashing prices – a fraction of the tens of billions recently offered by the United States, or the £31bn ($40bn) already allocated to defence.
‘The budget is in the red,’ Oleksiy Sobolev, Ukraine’s deputy economy minister, admitted in an interview. ‘We need to find other ways to get money to keep the macroeconomic situation stable, to help the army and to win this war against Russia.’