The money is intended primarily to support the most vulnerable, such as people who lost their homes as well as those with disabilities and large families. Ukraine projects that some 2,000 families will receive new housing with the Council funds, the country’s infrastructure ministry said in a statement.
In its war against Ukraine, Russia has used energy as a weapon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian Recovery Conference in Berlin on Tuesday. “We have already lost 80 percent of heat generation in Ukraine and a third of hydro energy generation,” he said.
Alongside the energy grid, the housing sector is massively suffering under Russia’s war, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry.
The EBRD has significantly increased its financing for Kyiv during the war, providing more than €4 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine’s recovery, however, will require far more, with rebuilding costs estimated at $486 billion over the next decade, or 2.8 times the country’s economic output in 2023, the Ukrainian government said in a report.
Under the agreements signed in Berlin, the EU will provide financial guarantees for EBRD programs in Ukraine: €140 million for financial inclusion, and €37 million for the SME Competitiveness and Inclusion Programme. Some €150 million in financial guarantees and €7.5 million in technical assistance will go to the Hi-Bar guarantee program, which supports the energy sector. The rest of the money will go to the EBRD’s Municipal, Infrastructure, and Industrial Resilience Programme.