07/07/2026
What URC 2026 Told Us About the Next Phase of Ukraine's Recovery
An opinion column by Kostiantyn Turchak , Head of International GR, Magonova & Partners
The Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk made one thing clear: this is no longer a venue for declarations. Over 160 agreements worth more than €10 billion were signed across two days, alongside the first tranche of the EU's €90 billion support package.
The capital is there. The political will is there. But beneath the headline numbers, a structural gap is becoming impossible to ignore.
Donors and investors aren't short of money — they're short of mature, feasibility-ready projects. Concepts developed in expert or academic environments rarely make it to a stage suitable for blended financing. Municipalities and institutions know what they need, but often lack the capacity to shape it into a bankable form. The bottleneck isn't ambition. It's preparation.
What's also shifting is investor expectation itself. Capital is moving away from isolated, one-off projects toward multilayered initiatives — ones that solve an immediate need while laying groundwork for mid-term processes. A new wastewater system is good. One that anchors a broader plan for energy efficiency, local jobs, and EU-standard governance is fundable on an entirely different scale.
Three things we believe every organization working on recovery should act on now:
Re-examine your mid-term impact — not just the deliverable, but what it sets in motion over the next one to two years.
Advocate systematically. Visibility isn't vanity anymore — it's infrastructure.
Take internationalization seriously today, not someday. At URC, we heard multiple organizations describe plans to build dedicated international relations functions.
Most are still treating this as a future problem. It's a present one.
At Magonova & Partners, this is the work we do — helping partners read the room, sharpen strategic positioning, and build the international cooperation recovery now demands.
If you're thinking through your next strategic move, get in touch.
📖 Read the full column on our website: https://magonova.com/en/news/what-urc-2026-told-us-about-the-next-phase-of-ukraine-s-recovery
