Ukraine estimates cost of post-war reconstruction at US$750 billion
- Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal says frozen assets of Russia and its oligarchs should be a ‘key source of recovery’ for his war-torn country
- The EU plans to establish a platform to coordinate reconstruction efforts and also help to cement Ukraine’s status as a candidate for membership of the bloc
Ukraine told an international conference that it will cost an estimated US$750 billion to rebuild the war-shattered country, a task President Volodymyr Zelensky said was the shared duty of the democratic world.
Speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Switzerland on Monday, the Ukrainian president and a long line of government ministers described the massive destruction and towering needs since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24.
“Reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local task of a single nation,” Zelesnky said via video message.
“It is a common task of the whole democratic world,” he said, insisting that “reconstruction of Ukraine is the biggest contribution to the support of global peace”.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the conference that the recovery “is already estimated at US$750 billion”.
“We believe that the key source of recovery should be the confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs,” he said, stressing that “the Russian authorities unleashed this bloody war. They caused this massive destruction, and they should be held accountable for it”.