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EU membership, seizing Russia’s money needed to rebuild Ukraine: Analysts
Ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine may soon be under way, but Ukraine’s economic recovery will be hobbled unless the European Union fast-tracks the war-torn country’s membership and provides hundreds of billions of euros’ worth of insurance and investment, experts tell Al Jazeera.
“I think what Ukraine needs is some kind of future where it will have a stable and defendable border, and that will only come, I would think, with EU membership,” historian Phillips O’Brien told Al Jazeera.
The US administration of President Donald Trump last month handed Ukraine and Russia a ceasefire proposal that excluded future NATO membership of Ukraine, satisfying a key Kremlin demand and leaving Ukraine without the security guarantees it seeks.
“What business is actually going to take the risk of getting involved there economically?” asked O’Brien. “With NATO off the table, I think if Ukraine is going to have a chance of rebuilding and being integrated into Europe, it will have to be through a fast-tracked EU membership.”
That membership is by no means assured, although the European Commission started negotiations in record time last June, and Ukraine has the support of EU heavyweights like France and Germany.
If Ukraine becomes an EU member, it would still face a devastated economy requiring vast investment.
The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimated that between Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and November last year, Moscow’s onslaught had destroyed $170bn of infrastructure, with the housing, transport and energy sectors most affected.
That figure did not include the damage incurred in almost a decade of war in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 or the loss of 29 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the invasion in 2022. The estimate also did not put a value on the loss of almost a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, which Russia now occupies.
That territory contains almost half of Ukraine’s unexploited mineral wealth, worth an estimated $12.4 trillion, according to SecDev, a Canadian geopolitical risk firm.
It also does not include some types of reconstruction costs, such as chemical decontamination and mine-clearing.
The World Bank put the cost of infrastructure damages slightly higher this year, at $176bn, and predicts the cost of reconstruction and recovery at about $525bn over 10 years.
‘The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory’
Economic war has been part of Russia’s strategy since the invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014, argued Maximilian Hess, a risk analyst and Eurasia expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
“The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory, including for coking coal, agricultural products, and iron,” Hess told Al Jazeera.
The KSE has estimated Russia stole half a million tonnes of grain, included in the $1.9bn damages bill to the agricultural sector.
Using long-range rocketry, Russia also targeted industrial hubs not under its control.
Ukraine inherited a series of factories from the Soviet Union, including the Kharkiv Tractor Plant, the Zaporizhia Automobile Plant, the Pivdenmash rocket manufacturer in Dnipro and massive steel plants.
“All were targeted by Russian forces,” wrote Hess in his recent book, Economic War. “Russia’s attacks were, of course, primarily aimed at devastating the Ukrainian economy and weakening its ability and will to fight, but they also raised the cost to the West of supporting Ukraine in the conflict, something the Kremlin hoped would lead to reduced support for Kyiv.”
Through occupation and targeting, Russia managed to deprive Ukraine of a flourishing metallurgy sector.
According to the United States Geological Survey, metallurgical production decreased by 66.5 percent as a result of the war.
That is a vast loss, considering that Ukraine once produced almost a third of the iron ore in Europe, Russia and Central Eurasia, half of the region’s manganese ore and a third of its titanium. It remains the only producer of uranium in Europe, an important resource in the continent’s quest for greater energy autonomy.
Ukraine’s claims to have built a $20bn defence industrial base with allied help, a rare wartime economic success story.
That can make up for the losses in metallurgy, Hess said, “but only in part and in different regions of the country from which those mining and metallurgical ones were concentrated. Boosting [metallurgical activities] in places like Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and ideally territory ultimately freed from Russian occupation, will be necessary to win the peace.”
Trump’s minerals deal, and other instruments
Weeks ago, Ukraine and the US signed a memorandum of intent to jointly exploit Ukraine’s mineral wealth.
Ukraine committed to putting half the proceeds from its metallurgical activities into a Reconstruction Fund, but experts doubted the notion that mineral wealth can rebuild Ukraine.
“Projects have a long launch period … from five to 10 years,” Maxim Fedoseienko, head of strategic projects at the KSE Institute, told Al Jazeera. “You need to make documentation, environmental impacts assessment, and after that, you can also need three years to build this mine.”
The US and EU might invest in such mines, Fedoseienko said, because “we have more than 24 kinds of materials from the EU list of critical [raw] materials,” but they would only contribute to the Ukrainian economy if investments were equitable.
Trump presented the minerals deal as payback for billions in military aid.
“There’s nothing remotely fair about it. The aid was not given to be paid back,” said O’Brien.
As Fedoseienko put it, “It is not fair if everyone will say, ‘OK, we will help you in a time of war, so you are owned [by] us.’”
In addition to fairness, Ukraine needs money. Some of that needs to come in the form of insurance.
A state-backed war-risk insurance formula Kyiv reached with the United Kingdom in 2023, for example, brought bulk carriers back to Ukraine’s ports and defeated Russian efforts to blockade Ukrainian grain exports.
As a result, Ukraine exported 57.5 million tonnes of agricultural goods in 2023-2024, and was on track to export 77 million tonnes in the 2024-2025 marketing year, which ends in June, its agriculture ministry said.
“There needs to be a substantial expansion of public insurance products in particular, as well as a move to seize frozen Russian assets,” said Hess.
Seizing some $300bn in Russian central bank money held in the EU was deemed controversial, but the measure is now receiving support.
“The Russian state has committed these war crimes, has broken international law, has done this damage to Ukraine – that actually becomes a just way of helping Ukraine rebuild,” said O’Brien. “[Europeans] have a very strong case for this, but they, right now, lack the political will to do it.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already repeatedly asked Europe to use the money for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction.
What Europeans have done in the meantime is going some way towards rebuilding Ukraine.
Some $300m in interest payments proceeding from Russian assets are diverted to reconstruction each year.
A European Commission programme provides 9.3 billion euros ($10.5bn) of financial support designed to leverage investment from the private sector.
Financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank are providing loan guarantees to Ukrainian banks, which gives them liquidity.
“So Ukrainian banks can provide loans to Ukrainian companies to invest and operate in Ukraine. This is a big ecosystem to finance investment and operational needs to the Ukrainian economy,” said Fedoseienko.
Together with the finance ministry, the KSE operates an online portal providing information about the various instruments available, which has already helped bring 165 investments to fruition worth $27bn.
“Is it enough to recover the Ukrainian economy?” Fedoseienko asked. “No, but this is a significant programme to support Ukraine now.”
Getting home, and turning back the clock, has long been at the root of Christopher Nolan’s films. The astronauts of “Interstellar” painstakingly lose 23 years in space travel, almost the same length of time Odysseus is away from home in “The Odyssey”: a decade fighting the Trojan War, a decade trying to return to Ithaca.
So, to a remarkable degree, Nolan’s “The Odyssey” — faithful as it is to Homer’s epic poem — feels, down to its nonlinear DNA, like a Nolan movie. The authorship of the epic poem, dated to the 7th or 8th century BC, is complex. But no one could question the maker of this “Odyssey,” an earthy, existential epic that ravishingly melds the storytelling of antiquity with contemporary IMAX-sized bravado.
As a story about a man whose cunning offends the gods, “The Odyssey” feels very much like a companion piece, if not a downright sequel, to “Oppenheimer.” Odysseus (Matt Damon, in the role of his life) is increasingly racked with guilt for the violence and death he’s wrought after his ingenuity led to the sacking of Troy.
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Matt Damon, as Odysseus, in a scene from “The Odyssey.” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)
The arrival of any new Nolan spectacle inevitably leads to its own kind of assault, and avalanches of “masterpiece” proclamations. (I’m notinnocent.) But while “The Odyssey,” Nolan’s first film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, doesn’t skimp on grandiosity, it works surprisingly well as a simpler, human-sized tale.
The journey — you may have heard, it’s about the journey — is sometimes a little clunky, and the sheer Nolan-ness of the production, not to mention the historic nature of the tale, inevitably saps it of some freshness. You could make a credible case that Nolan has already made a movie about a guy trying to reach his family through strata of mind-warping illusion, and it’s called “Inception.” Such is the trouble with urtexts.
But “The Odyssey” is rarely not transfixing, and it’s a ripping adventure story, besides. At the least, it’s the definitive big-screen adaptation of one of literature’s oldest tales — a not-too-shabby accomplishment for a filmmaker of restless ambition.
It’s not until Book 5 that Odysseus enters Homer’s poem, and Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay, likewise begins in Ithaca. There, Odysseus’ home is overrun by feasting suitors in pursuit of his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway). Foremost among them is Antinous, who’s played with sleazy perfection by Robert Pattinson. For an actor often (pleasingly) at odds with the movies around him, Pattinson has never slid more seamlessly into a part.
Telemachus (Tom Holland, also well-cast), the youthful son of Penelope and Odysseus, resolves to go in search of his father. Meanwhile, we catch up with Odysseus, weathered and white-bearded, following the fall of Troy. His forced conscription, by Agamemnon, is shown in flashbacks. Agamemnon is depicted with an imposing Darth Vader-like presence and played by Benny Safdie, but the real star is his hulking, mohawked helmet.
This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, and Tom Holland as Telemachus, in a scene from “The Odyssey.” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)
Such vivid details abound in Nolan’s richly textured film. The simple rocking of Odysseus’ longship, off the Mediterranean coast, is glorious. Some of Nolan’s and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s most impressive work has come when they’re faced with the elements (as in “Dunkirk” ). And “The Odyssey” is flooded with stormy seas and enchanted isles. If anything, the movie could have gone further; I was promised rosy-fingered dawns.
The first line of Homer’s poem, as translated by Emily Wilson (the version Nolan leaned on), refers to Odysseus as “a complicated man.” James Joyce, whose “Ulysses” was based on “The Odyssey,” once noted that while Hamlet is merely a son, Ulysses, or Odysseus, is a father, a husband, a lover and a warrior. In short, he’s an Everyman, albeit an especially smart one. And Damon, the most amiable of Everymen, proves especially attuned to the multifaceted nature of the archetypal hero.
We meet him first as a soldier, leading a small group of ships away from Agamemnon’s fleet, setting a southerly course with his second-in-command Eurylochus (an excellent Himesh Patel). Their route takes them on a series of episodic quests: a cave encounter with Polyphemus, the Cyclops; a pine forest attack by the man-eating giants, the Laestrygonians; a meal with the witch Circe (Samantha Morton); and Odysseus’ seven-year interlude with the sea nymph Calypso (a beguilingly sincere Charlize Theron).
This image released by Universal Pictures shows a scene from “The Odyssey.” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)
You could argue that the movie can feel like a series of sketched-together set pieces, but what set pieces! That includes the tale of the Trojan horse, a fleeting mention in the poem but here a centerpiece. You can tell that Nolan, who nearly made “Troy” more than two decades ago, has had the sequence — beginning with the Trojan horse sunk in the sand and leading to the burning of Troy — on his mind for years.
Each stop on Odysseus’ journey gives Nolan a mythic playground to explore imagery that verges on the stuff of horror. I was most intoxicated by “The Odyssey” in its most surreal moments: the sight of a giant hand emerging out of the shadows, the meeting with the “shades” of Odysseus’ dead army, risen from the black soil of Hades.
“A time of apparent magic” is how the movie is introduced. Nolan has wisely opted to keep the gods sidelined. Their powers are real, but with the exception of Zendaya’s Athena, who appears like a confidant to Odysseus, the gods, themselves, remain off-screen.
That choice draws Nolan’s “Odyssey,” and its themes of sacrifice, fidelity and honor, closer to reality. And it makes Nolan’s decision to cast his film widely all the more essential. This is a story, passed down for centuries by singers and storytellers, that belongs to all of humankind. Casting the movie with a wide spectrum of actors, including Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, is not only fair game for a purely mythic tale but it gives the movie a present-day vitality. Seeing actors like Elliot Page (indelible as a fallen soldier), John Leguizamo (as the loyal servant Eumaeus) and Damon in this ancient context is a very big reason to see “The Odyssey,” and why Homer’s told and retold tale is worth revisiting, at all. If today has no role, what’s the point? They didn’t have cameras in 700 B.C., either.
This image released by Universal Pictures shows a scene from “The Odyssey.” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)
Nolan’s “Odyssey” is nearly three hours long but never slow going. And it’s the friction between past and present that propels the movie as much as Odysseus’ wayward path. Gender roles are examined even while traditional masculinity is upheld. The ending of the poem, a tricky thing since it features mass murder, is given a more palatable action-movie melee. But the essence of “The Odyssey” is here, and Odysseus’ quest to live down his mistakes and uphold his convictions feels vibrant again. Nolan, you might say, is at home.
“The Odyssey,” a Universal Pictures release in theaters Thursday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for violence and some language. Running time: 172 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
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American mother Jamey Carney was remembered at her funeral as a devoted parent who had built a happy life in Ireland before her life was violently cut short.
Carney, 43, a New York native who moved to Ireland in 2021 with her teenage daughter, was violently beaten and suffocated in her home in Killarney, County Kerry, last week. A Jordanian failed asylum seeker who was living in Ireland and was romantically involved with Carney was arrested in relation to the case in his home country after fleeing Ireland via Istanbul after her death, according to Irish media.
Mourners gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney to pay their final respects during a service celebrating Carney’s life. The service was livestreamed, allowing friends and family around the world to join in mourning before a private cremation.
AMERICAN MOTHER MURDERED IN IRISH TOURIST TOWN AS INTERNATIONAL MANHUNT TARGETS ALLEGED ASYLUM SEEKER
The remains of Jamey Carney are carried from St Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney by her mother Kathleen (left), sister Devon (blue hair) and relatives in Killarney, Kerry, Ireland, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. The 43 year-old New York native was found dead in her home on July 7. (Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision for Fox News Digital))
“Today we don’t dwell on Jamey’s death, but we dwell on her life,” Fr. Kieran O’Brien told mourners.
During the service, O’Brien reflected on Carney’s life growing up in New York alongside her sister, Devon, before recalling her “big decision” to move to Killarney—a choice he described as “the best decision of her life.”
He said she and her daughter, Michaela, had found a place they proudly called home, with Michaela settling into school and becoming actively involved in Irish sports.
The priest described Carney as a woman whose “joy radiated” from her, saying she had built a close circle of friends after moving to Killarney and found happiness in simple things. He recalled her love of country music, travel, shopping, going to concerts and spending time with friends.
“She was happy in life and she was happy with life because life was good to her,” he said.
“But her real love in life was you, Michaela,” he added, addressing Carney’s daughter.
“We thank God for Jamey’s life, remembering at all times her joy, and the ray of sunshine that she brought to all of your lives,” he added.
Jamey Carney’s sister Devon, is consoled at the funeral for the 43 year-old at St Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney, Kerry, Ireland, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. The New York native was found dead in her home on July 7. (Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision for Fox News Digital)
Family members carried a series of personal items to the altar celebrating Carney’s life, including photographs of her daughter, Michaela, and her dog, Penny. A cowboy hat symbolizing her love of country music, the passports she and Michaela used to start their new life together in Ireland and an angel statue were also brought forward.
A framed photograph of Carney rested atop her coffin, which was positioned before the altar and draped in a white pall.
As Carney’s coffin departed St. Mary’s Cathedral following the funeral mass, young members of Dr. Crokes GAA Club formed a guard of honor outside the church. Carney’s grieving sister, Devon, wearing a Kerry GAA jersey and clutching a sunflower, was distraught as family members gathered around the hearse.
The service centered on celebrating Carney’s life, her family and the community she built in Ireland rather than the disturbing circumstances surrounding her death and subsequent murder investigation.
Detectives believe Carney was killed around 11 p.m. Monday, roughly 14 hours before her 13-year-old daughter discovered her body at about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. By then, the man had traveled roughly 200 miles by bus to Dublin Airport and boarded a flight to Istanbul, according to the Irish Independent.
Irish police have yet to publicly identify the person they want to question in the investigation or release his name, photograph or any physical description.
Irish police confirmed to Fox News Digital they were aware “of the arrest of a male in Jordan by the Jordanian authorities,” but did not identify the man or confirm he was the person of interest in the investigation. Police also confirmed they “have not made any request to the Jordanian authorities for the arrest of any person at this time.”
WATCH: Person of interest detained in murder of US mom in Ireland
MIGRANT WHO FLED IRELAND AFTER AMERICAN MOTHER’S MURDER IS ARRESTED IN JORDAN
Irish media have widely identified the man as the person of interest in the investigation, though Irish police have not publicly confirmed his identity.
Ireland does not have an extradition treaty with Jordan, where the man is being detained, according to the Irish Independent.
Fox News Digital asked Irish police and Ireland’s Department of Justice to confirm reports that the man had previously been refused asylum while appealing that decision. Neither agency confirmed the reports.
The man had been living in state-run accommodation for asylum seekers in Killarney before spending increasing amounts of time at Carney’s home after they became romantically involved, according to the Irish Mirror.
American citizen Jamey Carney, left, was found dead at her home in Killarney, County Kerry, last week. Irish police have launched a murder investigation into her death. (Jamey Carney/Facebook | iStock)
He first arrived in the United Kingdom before traveling through Northern Ireland and eventually settling in County Kerry, according to the Irish Mirror.
His social media accounts contain posts from the United Kingdom and Turkey in recent years.
Meanwhile, the FBI told Fox News Digital it stands ready to assist Irish authorities if requested.
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“Through our Legal Attaché in London, we have strong, established relationships and stand ready to assist in any way that the Irish government may request,” the FBI said in a statement.
The State Department told Fox News Digital it is providing consular assistance to the family.
Published on
Russia is planning attacks on critical infrastructure in the Baltic states or Poland, Lithuanian and Latvian presidents warned on Wednesday, citing intelligence reports.
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“We are talking about energy and transport infrastructur, facilities where damage could… disrupt the functioning of the entire energy system,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said at a joint press conference in Vilnius with his Latvian counterpart, Edgars Rinkevics.
“This planning is taking place at the highest level, effectively in Moscow,” he added.
Rinkevics warned that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, all EU and NATO members, must be prepared for provocative actions by Russia as it seeks to “test” the alliance’s mutual defence pact amid its war in Ukraine.
“Even without a total Ukrainian victory, Russia may indirectly test Article 5 and response mechanisms at the alliance and European Union levels,” he said.
In late June, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a press conference “various types of escalation can be expected in the coming weeks and months”, calling the situation “very unstable”.
Baltic and Polish officials have already linked Russia to several incidents including arson, cyberattacks and diversions on railway lines.
The Lithuanian president said his country had strengthened protection of its transport and energy infrastructure in response to the threats.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disputed the claims.
“This is just another fresh batch of scare stories designed to keep the brainwashing going and prepare the population for further militarisation,” he said.
Located along the Baltic Sea and bordering Russia and its close ally, Belarus, Lithuania has been a key ally to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Lithuania is NATO’s highest security spender in relative terms, allocating 5.33%of its GDP to defence.
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