Ukraine Expects To Secure Pledges Totaling $7 Billion At Reconstruction Conference
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said he expects to secure almost $7 billion in aid for reconstruction, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv needs concrete commitments for projects that will help post-war development and further modernization.
Shmyhal told the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London on June 21 that the war meant Kyiv faces the largest reconstruction project in Europe since World War II. He said the price tag for reconstruction would be more than $6 billion over the next 12 months, then later on Telegram he said he expects to secure almost $7 billion.
"The key objective is to mobilize resources to finance rapid recovery," he said.
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At the conference, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU would give Ukraine 50 billion euros ($54.6 billion) for 2024-27, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered $1.3 billion in additional aid. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak unveiled measures including $3 billion of additional guarantees to unlock World Bank lending for Ukraine.
The London conference is being attended by more than 1,000 public and private sector decision-makers.
Addressing the event via video link, Zelenskiy welcomed the pledges but called for a transition to concrete proposals that could not only help Ukraine recover from the devastating conflict but also put it on the right track to becoming a strong member of the Western community.
"At this conference, we must move from vision to agreements, and from agreements to real projects. There is a Ukrainian delegation in London that will present concrete things that we propose to do together," he said.
Speaking in an interview on June 21, Ukraine's deputy prime minister for recovery said the main source of funds for the recovery should be the seized assets of the Russian Federation.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, who is also minister of community development, territories and infrastructure, said seized assets held in countries that have provided Ukraine with military support should be used to help rebuild Ukraine.
"For me, this is a logical step. They may be cautious in these steps now. and these are the kind of tools they would probably like to keep somewhere near the end of the war, but no one knows how long it will last. In order to return the country to normal life, we need these funds now," Kubrakov said in an interview with Ukrainian public broadcasting.
He also noted that "ideally" the timing of the recovery process will coincide with Ukraine's accession to the European Union, noting that many Eastern European countries before joining the EU received "quite a lot of funding" for things like infrastructure.
"They rebuilt their countries precisely with the help of EU funds. But I still believe that our main source is the funds of the Russian Federation," he said.
The London gathering came hot on the heels of a fresh wave of Russian missile and drone strikes on several Ukrainian regions and the capital overnight.
In the eastern Donetsk region -- the focal point of the war in the east over the past several months -- two civilians were killed over the past day by Russian shelling in Kostyantynivka, the regional head of the military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram early on June 21.
WATCH: Ukrainian soldiers are advancing around Bakhmut atop captured Russian tanks. The fighting vehicles were seized by Ukrainian troops during counteroffensive operations in the Kharkiv region last year. The tanks were taken for repairs before being sent to attack Russian positions in Ukraine's embattled Donetsk region.
Russia targeted the Kyiv, Khmelnitskiy, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Poltava, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, and Zaporizhzhya regions, and the Ukrainian air defense said it shot down 32 out of 35 Iranian-made drones -- 20 of them above the capital.
Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that progress in Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces was "slower than desired," but that Kyiv would not be pressured into speeding it up.
"Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It's not," he told the BBC in an interview. "What's at stake is people's lives."
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have made some gains in their advance on the Zaporizhzhya towns of Melitopol and Berdyansk, Andriy Kovalev, a spokesman for the General Staff, said early on June 21 in a post on Ukraine's Military Media Center's Telegram channel.
Ukrainian defenders continue to hold back the advance of Russian forces in the east of the country.
"Especially heavy fighting" is under way near Lyman in Donetsk, he added.
Fighting also continued in the Bakhmut, Kupyansk, Avdiyiyvka, and Maryinka areas of Donetsk, where 40 close-quarter battles were fought over the last day, the military said in a separate report early on June 21.
RFE/RL cannot confirm reports of battlefield developments by either side in areas where the heaviest fighting is taking place.
With reporting by Reuters
Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
