US support for Ukraine is moving from grants toward commercial diplomacy — credit structures, sovereign de-risking and corporate joint ventures designed to work for both sides, said Daria Yaniieva, President of Defence Builder, at the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) Roundtable "Dispatch from Washington, D.C." in Kyiv.

One example of that shift is the Ukraine Reconstruction Trust Fund, financed by penalties, taxes and tariffs on Russia rather than by the US taxpayer. More instruments of this kind are becoming available, and the practical question is how to use them effectively.

Access to capital was among the main questions raised from the floor. Yaniieva noted the scale of the gap: investing every fund currently open for Ukrainian defence into every open round would still leave it unclosed. She cited a company backed early through Defence Builder Fund I that later became the first investment of the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, and framed the open question as how capital of that kind reaches a wider pool of companies, and what is needed for joint production to become structured and open in the direction initiatives such as Build with Ukraine point toward.

On what Ukraine contributes, Yaniieva said the value is not only technology but operational experience, which is now an input to the rearmament cycle of NATO countries.

The Roundtable featured Anders Aslund, USUBC Senior Advisor and Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum; Natalie Jaresko, USUBC Senior Advisor and Managing Director at EY-Parthenon; and Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and Senior Managing Director of the Energy and Critical Minerals Practice at McLarty Associates. They were joined by Artem Rybchenko, Deputy Minister for Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport of Ukraine. The event was hosted by Irina Paliashvili, President and CEO of USUBC.