One Hedge Fund Holds the Keys to Ukraine’s Wartime Industries
VR Capital has built a powerful position in Ukrainian bonds, giving it enormous influence as companies key to the war effort try to restructure their debt.
In March, management consultant Vira Savchenko took an overnight train from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv towards Dnipro, returning from meetings with a delegation of potential foreign investors. As she crossed central Ukraine in the early hours, the locomotive screeched to a halt.
The conductors rushed the passengers outside, directing them to take cover behind a line of freight cars. “We were lying on the soot-covered tracks,” Savchenko said. “A drone — or several of them, it was hard to tell — was zooming around us in very low circles.” Eventually, they crawled towards a nearby cemetery where they could hide underneath some trees.