7 May, 11:27
In late 2024, a new organization emerged in Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction landscape, proudly calling itself "We Build Ukraine". According to its website and public statements, the group is an independent analytical center dedicated to implementing reforms and attracting investment for Ukraine’s economic transformation.
But beneath the surface of glossy presentations and conference photo ops lies a different story — a rebranding effort by some of the country’s most notorious operators of infrastructure graft. Rather than reforming the system, they are reinventing themselves as its brokers.
🎭 A New Front, Same Old Faces
On paper, “We Build Ukraine” is designed to facilitate cooperation between private investors and the Ukrainian government. In practice, however, it appears to be little more than a polished conduit for backdoor deals — a place where “consulting” is synonymous with “kickbacks,” and “expertise” is drawn from the school of budgetary plunder.
Let’s take a look at the lineup of this so-called analytical hub:
🧱 The Builders of Losses
Oleksandr Kubrakov
Former Deputy Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine (2022–2024) and mastermind of the infamous “Big Construction” initiative — a state infrastructure program riddled with allegations of inflated contracts and embezzlement. Currently a part-time advisor to the Ministry of Defense, Kubrakov epitomizes Ukraine’s revolving door between public office and shadow consultancy.
Yuriy Vaskov
Former Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, best remembered for the billion-hryvnia disaster known as the Odesa breakwater — an underwater vanity project that never functioned as intended. His role in the now-defunct Seaports Authority continues to raise questions.
Dmytro Sherembey
A convicted thief and former drug trafficker with a criminal record spanning years. His inclusion in an international-facing “investment” platform is not only farcical — it's a compliance and reputational nightmare.
Oleksandra Azarkhina
Ex-official from Ukraine’s notoriously opaque road agency, Ukravtodor. Her proximity to Kubrakov raises red flags about entrenched clientelist networks, especially given past accusations of contract rigging and inflated tenders.
Anna Yurchenko
Another alumnus of the Big Construction program, tied to questionable procurement processes and bid manipulations.
Bohdan Danylyshyn
The former head of the National Bank’s Council. His involvement is the most puzzling: either a misplaced endorsement or a calculated attempt to add academic legitimacy to a deeply compromised project.
💼 Not Reform, But Repackaging
While We Build Ukraine presents itself as a neutral policy platform, its core function appears to be facilitating access — not to government processes, but to government insiders.
In a country where institutional reform remains fragile, such structures threaten to normalize elite capture under the guise of public-private cooperation. Western donors and investors are being courted not as stakeholders, but as naïve patrons in a privatized reconstruction marketplace.
⚠️ Why This Matters
1. Reputation Risk: International partners risk legitimizing actors with well-documented histories of corruption.
2. Misallocated Funds: Every dollar routed through these “analytical” schemes is a dollar diverted from real reconstruction.
3. Policy Hijacking: Allowing the same figures who sabotaged reform in the past to define it today is a recipe for failure.
🔍 Conclusion
We Build Ukraine is not a reformist breakthrough. It is an exercise in political laundering, where those who once gutted Ukraine’s infrastructure budgets now pose as stewards of its future.
Until genuine accountability takes root, no amount of English-language websites, business forums, or panel discussions can disguise the fundamental problem: you can’t rebuild a country with the same hands that looted it.