World Bank ’dreams’ of rebuilding Ukraine

A pro-government economist finds attempts to assess the cost of rebuilding Ukraine futile, for the moment.

In Magyar Hírlap, László Bogár dismisses a chunky report by the World Bank which estimates the cost of rebuilding Ukraine after the war at 411 billion dollars. No matter how detailed the analysis seems to be, with its masses of data, he writes, no one knows when the war will be over, and the destruction is still well underway. But even if we knew how much of the individual cities and regions will be destroyed by the end, we should first determine what we mean by ‘Ukraine’ Bogár writes. The World Bank obviously means Ukraine as it was before 2014 when Russia seized Crimea and half of the Donets Basin. Since then, further regions have been occupied by Russia. Who knows how much of all that Ukraine can realistically hope to reconquer? Bogár asks.

Tags: Russia, Ukraine, World Bank