Ukraine’s geoeconomic strategy in an era of global transition: risks and opportunities

LSE hosts discussion with embassy and think tank community in Kyiv

On the 25^th March 2026, the conflict research group at LSE IDEAS organised a half-day workshop in Kyiv in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – Kyiv Office and the Democratic Initiatives Foundation. The workshop was the last event organised as part of LSE’s work for PeaceRep (the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform), one of two flagship UK FCDO policy-oriented conflict research programmes. It was also supported by the Science Partnership Fund (ISPF) Institutional Support Grant (ODA) 2025–26 as part of efforts to build, sustain and deepen the LSE’s international research partnerships.

The expert roundtable brought together colleagues form the embassy and expert community in Kyiv. Organised under the Chatham House rule, participants included representatives of the following governments and institutions: Canada, Poland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, the NATO Representation to Ukraine and the European Union Delegation.

The workshop consisted of three roundtable discussions:

· Addressing the China question in Ukraine’s reconstruction and peace negotiation

· The global energy crisis and its impact on the Russo-Ukrainian War

· Lessons from and next steps for Ukraine’s innovative defence production ecosystem

A key impetus for hosting the discussion was to consider how smaller and middle powers can cooperate to address the challenges of global conflict and fragmentation. As the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued in his Davos speech, “other countries, especially intermediate powers… are not powerless” in the face of global disorder. The question is how like-minded democratic states can club together to navigate these multiple threats and what strategies they should employ to secure their collective security interests.

The workshop also marked the start of the LSE’s research and engagement activity for the 2026 Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Poland, due to take place at the end of June. These geopolitical factors and considerations shape a number of discussions under way in the URC process, from defence-related investments, supply chain localisation strategies, to the potential role of China in Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. LSE’s work for the URC has been sustained across several years, from London 2023 to Berlin 2024 and Rome 2025.

Dr. Luke Cooper, Director of PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme said:

“Sincere thanks to our Ukrainian partners for hosting us in Kyiv for these important and timely discussions. For me, a key takeaway was the need for Ukraine, Europe and key strategic partners like Canada to invest in their own security and defence architecture, working towards greater sovereign capability and supply chain resilience to reduce their dependencies on an unreliable and increasingly authoritarian United States. In developing cost-effective solutions, we have much to learn from Ukraine’s defence ecosystem, which has far lower margins and costs, much faster production speeds, and a more opensource model of research and development, than the western military industrial complex.”

A readout of discussions at the event is available on the link below:

Some background readings were circulated in advance of the roundtable:

Understanding the ‘China Factor’ in the Russia-Ukraine War https://peacerep.org/publication/understanding-the-china-factor-in-the-russia-ukraine-war/

Russo-Ukrainian War: The Political Economy of the Present Balance of Forces https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Russo-Ukrainian-War-The-Political-Economy-of-the-Present-Balance-of-Forces-DIGITAL.pdf

From the Battlefield to the Future of Warfare: Harnessing Ukraine’s Drone Innovations to Advance U.S. Military Capabilities — KSE Institute Report https://kse.ua/about-the-school/news/from-the-battlefield-to-the-future-of-warfare-harnessing-ukraine-s-drone-innovations-to-advance-u-s-military-capabilities-kse-institute-report/

How Myanmar’s War Became the World’s Second Biggest Drone Fight https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/publications/research-reports/how-myanmars-war-became-the-worlds-second-biggest-drone-fight

Beyond Manoeuvre Theory for European Defence https://www.researchgate.net/publication/401137994_Beyond_Manoeuvre_Theory_for_European_Defence