PARIS—More than 500 Western financers, politicians, and industrialists flooded the French Ministry of Finance this week for a European fundraising burlesque aimed at resurrecting Ukraine from Vladimir Putin’s devastation.
The pockets of French President Emmanuel Macron—and others who attended Tuesday’s Bilateral Franco-Ukrainian Forum for Resilience and Reconstruction of Ukraine—were emptied of some $1 billion. The immediate pledge to fix Ukraine’s obliterated power...