Ukraine will need £335 billion to rebuild over the next decade after Russia’s devastation killed nearly 10,000 civilians and damaged two million homes, the World Bank has revealed in a new report.
The cost of removing the rubble alone has been estimated at £4 billion, according to the report, which offers both comprehensive and accurate insights into the toll Vladimir Putin’s 13-month illegal war has taken on Ukraine.
The numbers are grim: at least 9,655 civilians confirmed dead, including 465 children; nearly two million homes damaged; damaged more than one in five public health facilities; and 650 ambulances damaged or looted.
In all, the World Bank has so far calculated $135 billion (£110 billion) in direct damage to buildings and infrastructure, without accounting for broader economic damage.
The actual number of Ukrainian civilians killed in the war is likely to be much higher than the official figure. With large parts of the country still occupied by Russian forces, investigators could not gain access to count the full toll.
Ukraine will need £335 billion to rebuild over the next decade after Russia’s devastation killed nearly 10,000 civilians and damaged two million homes, the World Bank has revealed in a new report. Pictured: Residents walk through a destroyed street in the city of Bucha in April 2022. The city was the scene of heavy fighting and Russian war crimes
The damage would be even worse if Ukrainian forces hadn’t put up a strong defense, noted Anna Bjerde, World Bank vice president for Europe and Central Asia. Ukraine was heavily supported by Western arms supplies.
She said the worst damage was confined to the frontline regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Kherson — the four regions Putin claimed to have annexed last September, though he has none of them fully under his control.
According to the World Bank, Russia’s invasion has wiped out 15 years of economic progress in Ukraine, slashed Ukraine’s gross domestic product by 29 percent and pushed 1.7 million Ukrainians into poverty.
The assessment was carried out by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission and the United Nations.
The results are intended to serve as a guide for planning the financing and implementation of ongoing rehabilitation efforts in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s energy sector has seen its worst wave of damage in recent times, as a result of Russia’s targeted winter attacks on the power grid and other energy hubs – including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia.
The overall damage in the energy sector is now five times greater than last summer, the World Bank said.
Pictured: An aerial view of the city of Mariupol, which was nearly razed to the ground by Russian shelling in the early stages of the war
Pictured: An aerial view of the city of Bakhmut as seen last month. The city was the center of the bloodiest fighting of the war and was completely destroyed by Russian shells
The report’s release comes after Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on a £12.7 billion loan package aimed at bolstering government finances severely strained by the Russian invasion.
The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine said the program will “help mobilize funding from Ukraine’s international partners, maintain macro-financial stability and secure the path to post-war reconstruction after Ukraine’s victory in the war against the aggressor.”
The loan program – which also aimed to mobilize more support by reassuring allies that Ukraine is pursuing strong economic policies – would run for four years.
The first 12 to 18 months would focus on helping Ukraine close its budget deficit and easing pressure to fund spending by printing money at the central bank, the IMF said in a statement.
The remainder of the program would focus on supporting Ukraine’s bid for European Union membership and post-war reconstruction.
The IMF deal is expected to mobilize more money for Ukraine as it provides potential donor governments, including the G7 democracies and the EU, with evidence that the Ukrainian government is pursuing sound economic policies.
The deal, which is subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board, “is designed to help mobilize large-scale concessional financing from Ukraine’s international donors and partners over the life of the program,” said Gavin Gray, head of the IMF’s mission to the country Ukraine a statement.
The IMF said that the Ukrainian authorities have demonstrated their commitment to sound economic policies and achieved all agreed targets during a consultation.
The lending program goes beyond previous IMF practice by lending to a country at war under new rules that allow aid in circumstances of “extremely high uncertainty”.
Ukraine increased military spending while the economy shrank by around 30 percent in 2022, hurting tax revenues. The result was a budget deficit that was covered by debt financing from the US, EU and other allies.
Ukraine has already started rebuilding in some regions, with before (above, February 2022) and after photos (below, February 2023) showing how places in Kiev hit by Russian strikes in the early stages of the war were repaired in less than a year since the attacks
External aid has helped the country end its reliance on money printed by the central bank and loaned to the government, an emergency measure deemed necessary at the start of the war but fueling inflation and destabilizing the country’s currency might if it lasts longer.
Before the war, Ukraine had made progress in reforming its banking system and making public procurement more transparent. But Ukraine still ranks 122 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
The pre-war economy was characterized by political involvement by wealthy individuals known as oligarchs and slow progress in improving the legal system, which was seen as too open to political influence.
But the IMF said after the preliminary consultations that the government had “made progress on reforms to strengthen governance, the fight against corruption and the rule of law, laying the foundations for post-war growth, although the reform agenda in these areas remains significant.” is”. .