📩 Ukraine's road to recovery

DEAR READER,

Over the weekend, Russia launched one of its largest drone attacks on Ukraine, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones, targeting the country’s energy infrastructure. Shortly afterwards, it was reported that President Biden had approved the use of US-supplied long-range missiles in the Kursk region. So, after 1,000 days of war, Ukraine can finally use Western weapons in Russia.

Before Donald Trump takes office in January, with promises to end the war, it is also important to focus on helping Ukraine recover. Several efforts are already underway, including the upcoming conference on rebuilding Ukraine, scheduled for November 25–26 in Warsaw. As President Zelenskyy has stated, rebuilding Ukraine will be the largest economic project in Europe. Indeed, a joint report by the World Bank, United Nations, and European Commission estimate the cost of reconstruction and recovery after two years of war to be around $486 billion. And this number is only going up.

We asked Iwona Reichardt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at New Eastern Europe, to discuss what is at stake and how Ukraine’s supporters should approach this problem to ensure the proper recovery of the war-torn country. The goal is to avoid past mistakes and ensure Ukraine becomes a successful European state. However, no recovery is possible without security, and we have yet to see how that aspect of the problem is addressed.

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Enjoy reading this week’s “brief”!

— Giorgi Beroshvili, Editor

On the morning of November 17, came news of another Russian massive drone attack against Ukraine, and against its critical infrastructure facilities, including energy. There is probably no need to convince anyone that the scope of war devastation in Ukraine is enormous. The war has been going on for almost three years now and large damages continue to be inflicted by the aggressor. In fact, we can expect more of such infrastructure attacks as well as aggressive moves on the frontline in the months to come. It is pretty clear that since the victory of Donald Trump in the United States and talks of possible “negotiations” by the president-elect and future members of his administration, the Kremlin appears to want to gain (and destroy) as much as possible; all in order to keep a strong position at the potential “negotiation” table.

While at the moment, we do not know what format might ultimately take place and what outcomes it might bring, it remains crystal clear that Ukraine’s reconstruction, or recovery to use the term that is now seen in the language of policy-makers, is a task that will be massive and multidimensional. The previous international experiences with rebuilding might serve as lessons as to what to repeat and what to avoid. The former point to a large international engagement of foreign states and international development institutions. Ukraine, with GDP per capita among the lowest in Europe, will surely not be able to rebuild the damage it has experienced on its own. International solidarity in this endeavour is what the Ukrainians will need the most.

Aware of it or not, Europeans will also need this solidarity and a process that will lead Ukraine to becoming a modern European state. Rebuilding Ukraine also means bringing peace back to Europe and as such it should be seen as a moral obligation for us all. We should thus avoid the rhetoric which presents the recovery process as a profit-making opportunity for large firms and competition between European companies and who can gain more and quickly.

A just and fair rebuilding will take years and should not be seen as a near-colonial race. This brings us to the negative lessons learnt from previous international experiences (think about Iraq) where the international response was that of greed rather than solidarity or rebuilding peace. This more than anything else should be avoided in Ukraine; especially if we are serious about Europe being once again a continent of peace.

— Iwona Reichardt, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at New Eastern Europe

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