Regulatory Trends in Ukraine’s Port Sector: Rules, Policies, and Risks

The article examines Ukraine’s port-sector regulatory framework for establishing public-private partnerships (PPPs), the risks to private investment in strategic maritime infrastructure, and how pre-war contracts cannot address military threats, destruction, operational disruption, and prolonged force majeure. Drawing on case studies of ongoing investment projects in the Ukrainian port sector and comparative analysis, it identifies six risks: security and operational disruption; poor investor selection and conflicts of interest; financial and insurance exposure; administrative and contractual discontinuity; dependence on private operators for essential services; and technological obsolescence. Ukraine’s challenging wartime and post-war security environment calls for adaptable, security-oriented public-private cooperation to strengthen wartime resilience, support post-war reconstruction, and integrate the country into global logistics networks.