Amid War With Russia, Ukraine Lays Out $750 Billion 'Recovery Plan'

Prime Minister Shmyhal said that his country's direct infrastructure losses amounted to more than $100 billion.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@Denys_Shmyhal)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a speech on Monday, 4 July called the eventual post-war reconstruction of Ukraine a “common task of the entire democratic world," while Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal laid out a three-stage $750 billion recovery plan.

This plan was revealed at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, in the first instance of planning out a potential future for Ukraine if it survives as a west-facing State in a post-war world.

Shmyhal said that his country's direct infrastructure losses amounted to more than $100 billion, with 1,200 educational institutions, 200 hospitals and thousands of kilometers of gas pipelines, water and electricity networks, roads and railways either destroyed or damaged, reported The Guardian.

"The key source of recovery should be the confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs," Shmyhal told leaders of dozens of countries in Lugano, arguing that the Russians unleashed this war and should be held accountable for it.

Shmyhal laid out the three phases of the recovery plan:

The first phase focuses on recovery of quality of life through humanitarian aid, including essential services like water supply.

The second, focusing on ‘fast recovery’ as soon as the conflict ends and planned to be rolled out from 2023 to 2025, encompasses construction of temporary housing and reconstruction of schools and hospitals.

The final phase, for 2026 to 2032, focuses on long-term recovery of the country through the digitisation of the economy and is aimed to prepare the State for eventual membership in the European Union.

(With inputs from Reuters and The Guardian.)