Mayor: Kharkiv reconstruction will cost at least €9.5 billion, outside assistance needed

Kharkiv needs €9.5 billion to rebuild housing, infrastructure, and utility facilities destroyed as a result of Russian aggression, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, reports Ukrinform.

"To rebuild our city, to rebuild the infrastructure, residential buildings, hospitals, kindergartens, schools, we need €9.5 billion. This is a very powerful challenge that no city of Ukraine is able to cope with alone," Terekhov stressed.

According to the mayor, 150,000 Kharkiv residents remain homeless. Half of the schools and kindergartens were destroyed. 56 hospitals were damaged.

He added that last year Kharkiv managed to rebuild 200 residential buildings that were completely destroyed at its own expense. 50 more are being built now.

"But without the support of our international partners, without the support of international financial institutions, it is extremely difficult to do this," said the mayor of Kharkiv.

According to the regional administration, now 1.2-1.3 million people permanently live in Kharkiv, from almost 2 million before the full-scale war. The population is growing due to the return of Kharkiv residents and the evacuation of residents from other parts of the region.

In April 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers chose six settlements where the experiment of full reconstruction will begin.

In June, Ukraine began to rebuild from scratch the first villages destroyed by the war: Posad-Pokrovske near Kherson and Yahidne near Chernihiv.

In the same month, a number of streets in Kharkiv were renamed in honor of heroes who died in the war.

On June 22, Ukraine announced the first tenders for the restoration of high-rise buildings.