The U.S.-Ukraine Investment Fund for Reconstruction (AUIF) has already selected 22 projects from 59 submitted applications and is preparing to sign the first three investment agreements this year. However, the base documents that define the conditions for business participation in this process are closed from public access.
What exactly is closed
The Public-Private Partnership Support Agency (PPP Agency) has classified commercial partnership agreements within the AUIF as service information — marked with the "DSK" classification. These very agreements determine the conditions under which private business gains access to fund projects: in the areas of critical minerals, energy, transport, and ICT.
The European Business Association (EBA) has sent letters to Minister of Economy Oleksiy Sobolev and PPP Agency Director Niko Gachechiladze demanding that copies of these documents be made public.
"These agreements determine future conditions for doing business in Ukraine"
— the EBA's position in its appeal to the Ministry of Economy and the PPP Agency
The association's legal argument
The EBA appeals to the Law on Access to Public Information: it obliges providing the open part of documents even when certain elements have restrictions. The "DSK" classification can only be applied on clearly defined legal grounds — and the association questions whether such grounds exist in this case.
In other words: even if part of an agreement is genuinely sensitive, this does not justify hiding the entire document.
Context: the fund is already operating, conditions are unknown
The AUIF was created on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and the United States, signed on April 30, 2025 in Washington. The agreement was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada on May 8, it entered into force on May 23. In September 2025, the fund began full operations.
The fund has already completed its first selection cycle: from 59 submitted applications — 37 from Ukrainian companies — 22 projects have been recommended for further processing. Priority sectors:
- critical minerals (upstream and midstream)
- energy: generation, transmission, hydrocarbon extraction
- transport and logistics
- ICT and advanced technologies
The goal for 2026, according to Sobolev, is to sign the first three investment agreements. In its early years, the fund plans to prioritize investments in equity and quasi-capital instruments.
Where the gap lies
A procedural issue here becomes systemic: if commercial partnership agreements remain closed, any investor submitting an application to the AUIF will have no idea of the standard participation conditions — until the moment they sign something concrete. This is not merely a lack of transparency; it is an information asymmetry favoring those who already have access to closed negotiations.
Neither the Ministry of Economy nor the PPP Agency has publicly responded to the EBA's appeal.
If the ministry provides a response citing specific legal norms that justify the DSK classification, it will test whether the closure of documents is a legal decision or an administrative reflex. Without this response, the question of who and on what conditions will gain access to Ukrainian mineral resources through the AUIF remains open precisely for those it is most addressed to.
