Zelensky: over $1 trillion needed for post-war restoration of Ukraine

Over $1 trillion will be needed for the post-war restoration of Ukraine, the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says in a video message to the General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions, introducing the city of Odesa as a candidate for hosting Expo 2030.

“We have already involved dozens of partner countries in the restoration of Ukraine. The total amount of work [will come up to] over $1 trillion,” he emphasises. 

Zelensky adds that thanks to the patronage system countries and companies are able to focus on restoring a specific region, city, field, or enterprise. According to the president, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Portugal, Czechia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Canada, the US, Japan, and Australia are interested in this system.

At the end of August, Zelensky estimated the amount of money needed for rebuilding destroyed infrastructure in Ukraine to be $600-800 billion. 

At the beginning of November, Bloomberg reported that the European Union was studying the possibility of using some of the Russian Central Bank’s frozen assets for the restoration of Ukraine. Economists familiar with the situation said that such discussions were in early stages. To make a decision of this kind, the EU would need a legal basis to do so, Bloomberg noted at the time. After the start of the war in Ukraine, Western countries arrested about half of the Russian Central Bank’s assets (around $300 billion).