AS damaged forests struggle to produce building timbers, the housing crisis in Ukraine worsens.
Russia’s invasion has caused $108.3 billion in damage to the country’s infrastructure, according to the Kyiv School of Economics, including the destruction of at least 140,000 residential buildings and 14,700 private homes – as counting continues.
Russian military, so far, has damaged or destroyed 105,200 cars, 43,700 agricultural machines, 764 kindergartens, 1991 shops and 634 cultural facilities, with $47.7 billion of damage to apartment buildings and private homes.
The conflict has displaced more than eight million people, according to United Nations estimates, with more than 6.5 million people crossing over into neighbouring countries including Poland and Moldova since Russia began its invasion in February 2022.
Available estimates to May last year show the Russia’s invasion had cost Ukraine nearly $600 billion, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
More than nine months after the start of the invasion and with no hint that Putin is ready to end his country’s aggression, talk is slowly turning not only to rebuilding Ukraine once the conflict does end, but to how and who will finance what Zelenskiy has declared will be “the largest economic project in Europe of our time,” likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars
Russian missile strikes have targeted and destroyed tonnes of Ukrainian infrastructure including railways, apartment buildings and hospitals.
More than two years after the start of the invasion and with no hint that Putin is ready to end his country’s aggression, talk is slowly turning not only to rebuilding Ukraine once the conflict does end, but to how and who will finance what Zelenskiy has declared will be “the largest economic project in Europe of our time,” likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars
Both the US and Ukraine’s European allies have offered billions of dollars in aid.
The Biden administration has announced it will send another $550 million in military assistance to Ukraine, putting total American aid at more than $7 billion.
Earlier this year, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal unveiled a $750 billion recovery plan to rebuild the country after the war ends, a project Zelensky urged the international community to participate in.
- With extracts from Reuters and the New York Times
