Ukraine Recovery Plan Presented in Switzerland

At the international conference taking place in the Swiss city of Lugano, the Ukrainian delegation led by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented a plan to restore Ukraine after the full-scale war with Russia.

As Shmyhal said during the presentation, the Ukraine recovery plan consists of three key stages:

1. To restore here and now what is possible and what is critical for people’s lives. This work is already underway and financed from the budget of Ukraine.
2. Rapid infrastructure restoration. Currently, the number of destroyed objects, even basic infrastructure, is enormous. Immediately after the end of hostilities and the victory of Ukraine, it will be necessary to implement thousands of reconstruction projects.
3. Long-term transformation. It concerns all spheres, starting from education and healthcare and ending with the new military-industrial complex.

As the Prime Minister noted, Ukraine systematically approaches the preparation of each of these stages and is creating an electronic map that records all the damage caused by the war.

“To date, Ukraine’s direct infrastructure losses amount to more than 100 billion dollars. More than 1,200 educational institutions, 1,200 hospitals, thousands of kilometres of gas pipelines, water and electricity networks, roads and railways have been destroyed or damaged. And we count each object; there will be a reconstruction project for each object,” said the Head of the Government of Ukraine.

He added that an appropriate structure – the Recovery Platform – is proposed to be set up for implementation of the plan. It is also envisaged to create several offices for the recovery of Ukraine: the main one will be located in Kyiv, and others – in Brussels, Washington, London, and other cities.

Within the framework of the strategy, the Ukrainian authorities plan to implement 850 projects and expect the national GDP to grow annually by 7%.

The plan is designed for 10 years – from 2023 to 2032 – and will be implemented in two stages. The first will last in 2023-2025, in which most of the mentioned projects – 580 – are planned to be implemented. These three years will cost more than 350 billion dollars.

The second stage will contain a smaller number of projects but will require more financing – more than 400 billion dollars.

The most expensive projects are the restoration and modernisation of housing and infrastructure in the regions, the expansion and integration of logistics with the EU, energy independence and the green transformation. Other large-scale programmes also include restoration and modernisation of social infrastructure, development of culture and sports systems.

“Who should pay for the recovery plan, which is already estimated at 750 billion dollars? We believe that the key source of recovery should be the confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs,” Shmyhal said.

In addition, he mentioned international grants, soft loans from international financial institutions, private sector investments, and off-budget contributions from private individuals and corporations as sources of recovery.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine thanked those countries that had already started the process of confiscation and called on other partners to join this process.

Bohdan Marusyak