Black Sea Assets and Battlefield Leverage: How Ukraine’s Strategic Industry May Shape a US-Brokered Peace

As diplomatic channels reopen in 2025, amidst growing weariness on both sides of the Ukraine war and rising pressure from Washington, the shape of any peace agreement increasingly hinges not just on territorial questions or military guarantees but also upon economic assets. Amongst the most consequential of these are Ukraine’s industrial and commercial facilities around the Black Sea — particularly oil refineries, shipping terminals and logistics hubs whose renovation could form part of a broader Western-led reconstruction package. These assets, if linked to future prosperity and foreign direct investment, may serve as both carrot and stick in a United States-mediated peace deal.

At the heart of this economic dimension lies a fundamental strategic proposition: if the United States can secure Ukraine’s long-term economic viability by anchoring Western capital to critical infrastructure — including her Black Sea energy and export infrastructure — then Washington has both the incentive and the means to pressure Russia into freezing the conflict on Western terms. Peace, in this framework, is not simply an end to war, but a means of reclaiming and rebuilding strategic assets that ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and integration into the Western economic system.

The Odesa Portside Complex and Oil Infrastructure

Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline, although partially blockaded, remains her primary artery to international trade. Amongst the most strategically important facilities is the Odesa Portside Plant, a major chemical and fertiliser complex that sits alongside one of the country’s key oil processing and export terminals. Once modernised, this facility could play a pivotal role in Ukraine’s post-war export revival.

Nearby lies the Odesa Oil Refinery, which has been largely inoperative since 2010 due to ownership disputes, Russian influence and wartime instability. While technically mothballed, its infrastructure is partially intact and could be redeveloped with foreign capital. A refurbished Odesa refinery — possibly linked with nearby port terminals and pipeline infrastructure — would provide Ukraine with critical domestic processing capacity for crude oil imports and potentially the re-export of refined fuels. This could reduce reliance on external refiners in Poland or Romania, enhancing Ukraine’s energy resilience.

Further east the Kremenchuk Refinery, Ukraine’s largest and most sophisticated oil processing facility, has been severely damaged by repeated Russian missile strikes. Yet its location further inland, on the Dnipro River, makes it less immediately relevant to Black Sea security. The restoration of coastal refineries — particularly in Odesa, but also in Mykolaïv and potentially Kherson if the city's liberation is sustained — would offer immediate returns in terms of maritime economic viability.

Logistics, LNG and the European Market

In addition to refining, Ukraine’s Black Sea ports hold potential for long-term integration into European energy and logistics networks. The proposed LNG import terminal near Odesa, shelved after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, could be revived with American or Qatari capital. While Ukraine is not a producer of liquefied natural gas, such a terminal would allow her to receive global LNG shipments and redistribute them inland or onward to Moldova and Eastern European neighbours, thereby offering energy diversification for the region as Russian gas supplies decline.

The United States, whose shale gas industry is actively seeking new export markets, has every reason to support such a project. Its realisation would be geopolitically symbolic: American gas arriving at a Ukrainian terminal, backstopping the very sovereignty Russia sought to destroy. Washington could make the financing and construction of this facility a central feature of a peace dividend package — contingent on Russian compliance with ceasefire conditions and non-interference with maritime trade routes.

Similarly, grain terminals in Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi — already targeted repeatedly by Russian drones — are ripe for foreign investment. Their restoration, modernisation and security are critical to the survival of Ukraine’s agricultural sector and, by extension, global food security. The United States, as a historical partner in grain trade and logistics innovation, could lead a donor consortium to rebuild and digitise these terminals with anti-drone protection, advanced storage systems, and customs integration with EU markets.

Economic Sovereignty and the Political Logic of Investment

The strategic logic of investing in Ukraine’s Black Sea energy and commercial assets is twofold. First, it enhances Ukraine’s ability to sustain herself economically without Russian interference. Second, it ties American and European capital into physical infrastructure on Ukrainian territory — making future Russian aggression not merely a geopolitical crisis, but an attack on Western investments and interests.

By elevating the economic cost of renewed conflict, this investment effectively creates a “capital-based deterrent” — one that, unlike military deployments, cannot be easily rotated or withdrawn. The more Western interests are embedded in Ukraine’s commercial landscape, the more likely the United States will remain committed to her long-term defence and stability. This is particularly salient in an age of domestic pressure in the US to reduce troop deployments abroad and focus on “America First” industrial policy. Securing resource access and logistical influence in Ukraine ticks both strategic and commercial boxes.

Incentivising Peace through Reconstruction

A key feature of the Kellogg-Witkoff peace proposal — leaked in April 2025 — is the front-loading of reconstruction guarantees and economic agreements ahead of any final political settlement. The American offer of a bilateral minerals agreement with Ukraine for rare earth extraction (now accepted in formal legal documents) may be mirrored by similar plans for Black Sea oil and energy logistics.

Ukraine’s government has indicated that such investments must be protected by binding security guarantees. The prospect of foreign companies financing and operating high-value infrastructure under threat of Russian missile attack is commercially untenable without clear ceasefire enforcement. Thus a US-mediated peace deal that freezes front lines and secures maritime demilitarisation becomes the enabling condition for private sector engagement.

For Russia, the incentive to agree comes not through moral suasion but through strategic containment: if Moscow refuses the peace offer, the United States will proceed with full-scale economic integration of Ukraine into the Western order — turning every restored port and refinery into a monument to Russian failure.

Maritime Infrastructure as a Diplomatic Lever

The United States holds extraordinary leverage over the outcome of the war — not solely through arms deliveries or diplomatic threats, but through the promise of economic transformation. Ukraine’s Black Sea commercial and energy infrastructure is central to her national recovery and sovereignty. By offering to unlock Western capital in exchange for Russian compliance with ceasefire conditions, Washington can frame peace not merely as an end to conflict, but as the gateway to shared prosperity.

In this context, oil refineries are no longer just industrial relics — they are bargaining chips in the largest geopolitical negotiation of the twenty-first century. Their reconstruction may yet build not only economic strength, but peace itself.