Ukraine bonds surge as Putin-Trump meeting confirmation fuels peace deal hopes
Ukrainian bonds continued their rally from late July, receiving a fresh boost after the Kremlin confirmed a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in the coming days, Bloomberg reported on Aug. 7.
Ukraine's debt securities, sensitive to prospects of an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, hit their highest levels in four months.
According to Bloomberg, Ukraine's dollar bond due in February 2029 climbed to 65 cents, gaining more than 3 cents on the dollar on Aug. 7.
The sharp spike in bond prices came against the backdrop of the potential Putin-Trump meeting, scheduled for next week.
Russia confirmed preparations for the first talks between the U.S. and Russian presidents since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, saying the venue has already been agreed upon.
The probability of a three-way summit between Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. is also rising, after President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed related discussions.
The war-torn country's debt notes still trade well below levels seen around February, when markets had hoped for a swift end to the war under Trump, following his campaign promises.
Initially, Ukraine's dollar-denominated bonds surged 12% in November 2024 following Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential elections. The notes plummeted through early March 2025 after a dispute between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office.
The bonds' recent rise began in late July as Trump shortened Putin's deadline to strike a peace deal with Ukraine to 10 days, threatening to impose 100% secondary tariffs on Russia by Aug. 8.
Ukraine's 2035 and 2036 bonds rose nearly 1.5 cents on July 28, according to Bloomberg data.
Kyiv completed a debt restructuring with bondholders last September, reducing its external debt by about $9 billion. The country now owes around $15.2 billion across eight new series of bonds, as well as $2.6 billion on a GDP warrant.
The Ukrainian government failed to reach an agreement with its bondholders to restructure approximately $2.6 billion of debt on April 24, indicating Kyiv could default on its $665 million payment.
