In a move that has garnered both praise and criticism, financial giants BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase have announced they are helping the Ukrainian government in establishing a reconstruction bank, the Ukraine Development Fund. The fund’s aim is to attract private investment on a large scale for post-war rebuilding projects, Financial Times reported.

BlackRock’s vice-chair, Philipp Hildebrand, announced their intention to “mobilize capital at scale” and use it to attract between five and ten times as much private investment. The investment will be prioritized in infrastructure, climate, and agriculture.

“So many of today’s long-term challenges are best addressed through blended finance and this is one. You need these vehicles to mobilize capital at scale,” said Hildebrand.

The World Bank estimated in March that Ukraine would need $411 billion to rebuild after the war.

“A new joint assessment released today by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission, and the United Nations, estimates that the cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine has grown to US $411 billion (equivalent of €383 billion),” according to the news release.

“The estimate covers the one-year period from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, to the first anniversary of the war on February 24, 2023.  The cost of reconstruction and recovery is expected to stretch over 10 years and combines both needs for public and private funds,” it added.

The Financial Times reported that the Development Fund will attract low-cost loans from various governments, charities, and international organizations.

“The fund is being set up to also give public and private sector investors the opportunity to invest into specific projects and sectors,” said Stefan Weiler, JPMorgan’s head of debt capital markets. “There will be different sectoral funds that the fund identified as priorities for Ukraine. The aim is maximize capital participation.”

More from Financial Times:

The Kyiv government engaged BlackRock’s consulting arm in November to determine how best to attract that kind of capital, and then added JPMorgan in February. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced last month that the country was working with the two financial groups and consultants at McKinsey.

No formal fundraising target has been set but people familiar with the discussions say the fund is seeking to raise low-cost capital from governments, donors and international financial institutions and leverage it to attract between five and 10 times as much private investment.

BlackRock and JPMorgan are donating their services, although the work will give them an early look at possible investments in the country. The assignment also deepens JPMorgan’s relationship with a longstanding client. The bank has helped Ukraine raise more than $25bn in sovereign debt since 2010 and led the country’s $20bn debt restructuring last year.

The financiers consulted with private and public sector investors and found they wanted to help Ukraine but were leery not just about war losses but also the country’s governance, lack of transparency and shallow capital markets.

What Ukraine needed, BlackRock advised, was a development finance bank to find investment opportunities in sectors such as infrastructure, climate and agriculture and make them attractive to pension funds and other long-term investors and lenders. JPMorgan was brought in partly for its debt expertise.

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As Tucker Carlson continues to craft his future after being unceremoniously dumped by Fox News, he may have picked quite a controversial figure for his first interview — and it is one sure to give the left heartburn.

The speculation over who Tucker has interviewed and could feature on an upcoming Twitter release has increased after a picture was posted by the suspected interviewee himself on Saturday: social media personality Andrew Tate.

GM pic.twitter.com/m0IyGsSqLV

— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) July 1, 2023

Andrew Tate, of course, became a TikTok sensation for his comments on many different issues including dating, work, and success for men and for refusing to bow to the woke, pajama-boy left.

WARNING: The following hyperlinks contain language some readers may find offensive.

His remarks are often criticized for being extreme and misogynistic, such as when he said most men prefer younger women because they’re easier to “imprint,” as well as saying that women who have put themselves in a dangerous situation need to “take some degree of personal responsibility” for being raped.

His comments have led him to be banned off and on by a variety of social media outlets.

Tate grew in popularity by loudly and directly refuting the left’s attempt to make young men feel ashamed of their masculinity and celebrating a life of hyper-masculinity and luxury. You may remember how this “toxic masculinity” nonsense rose to such a din that leftist corporations even jumped on the bandwagon and began pushing ads for their products by scolding men for being men.

In 2019, for instance the Gillette razor company put out several ads pushing the left’s anti-male agenda, one being an attack on men by excoriating the saying “boys will be boys.”

Sportswear giant Nike pulled something similar not long after Gillette’s ad with its 2021 “Play New” series, The Drum reported.

While there was some pushback — such as the ad put out by Egard Watches refuting the whole concept of “toxic masculinity” — most in the media celebrated the anti-male agenda.

This attack on men left a huge opening for someone like Tate to swoop in and begin offering pushback against the left’s hate for men. He is, of course, the anti-woke personality, pushing men to be as masculine as possible and blasting the West and Christianity for losing their faith and falling back from their beliefs in the face of left-wing criticism.

His patriarchal position has made him a target, naturally, and the entirety of the press ramped up to “get” him from the beginning.

Whatever the propriety of his pronunciations and posturing, he has also now become a target of the law and is currently under house arrest in Romania, accused of serious charges of the sexual exploitation and trafficking of young women. Andrew was arrested last December along with his brother, Tristan, and two associates

According to the BBC, “The indictment deposited with the Bucharest court says that the four defendants formed an organized criminal group in 2021 to commit human trafficking in Romania, but also in other countries including the U.S. and the U.K.”

The men are charged with forcing seven women into servitude as sex slaves and porn actresses and keeping them prisoner in Ilfov County, Romania.

For their part, the Tates’ media representatives issued a statement saying, “While this news is undoubtedly predictable, we embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation,” according to the BBC.

That leads us to the supposed interview with Tucker Carlson, who has interviewed Tate before.

If true, it seems sure that Tucker has picked the one person for his first interview that will rile up the media. Tucker, though, has given no hint of just when this interview could be released, but he has thus far been posting new videos on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So, maybe it’ll be a July 4th surprise?

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Photo Reveals Tucker’s First Interview Guest Since Exiting Fox News? The Left Will Hate This appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.