The bill looks astronomical. While the Ukrainian authorities speak of a “catastrophic” situation in Mariupol, a port city in the south-east of the country besieged by the Russian army since the end of February, Ukrainian Minister Yulia Sviridenko announced on Monday that the provisional cost of “the direct impact of destruction” in the country amounted to “564.9 billion dollars” (about 515.8 billion euros). To this figure, we must add “the indirect effects of the fighting” on the economy linked in particular to the explosion of unemployment, the sharp drop in household consumption or even the drop in state revenue.
The most significant losses are at the level of infrastructure, explained the Minister of the Economy, with “nearly 8,000 kilometers of damaged or destroyed roads”, as well as “dozens of stations, airports”, for an amount of 108.5 billion euros. Ten million square meters of housing and 200,000 cars were also destroyed on the 33rd day of war.
“Every day the numbers change, and unfortunately they increase,” laments Yulia Sviridenko on her Facebook page. The latter also estimated the drop in GDP in 2022 at 102 billion euros, i.e. an estimated contraction of more than 55% of the economy compared to 2021. The Ukrainian state budget will probably be cut by 43 .8 billion euros, a drop of almost 90% on the planned annual budget.
High inflation in Russia
“Thus, Ukraine (…) will demand financial compensation from the aggressor, she added, whether through court decisions or by transferring Russian assets directly to the state (currently) frozen in Ukraine”. For their part, the Russian authorities remain unmoved. On March 25, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on possible Russian aid to rebuild devastated Ukrainian cities, despite international sanctions against his country. Dmitry Peskov also did not worry about recent threats by US President Joe Biden to exclude Russia from the G20, stressing that “the world is much more diverse than the United States and Europe”.
In Russia, the cost of living is skyrocketing due to the conflict but it would be “foolish” to believe that Western sanctions against Russian companies could have any effect on the government in Moscow, according to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, reports Russian news agency RIA on Friday. The latter believes that, on the contrary, the sanctions will strengthen Russian society and will not cause the population’s dissatisfaction with the authorities.
In the meantime, on the ground the conflict is raging. In Mariupol, several thousand people were killed, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, in charge of humanitarian corridors, told AFP on Monday. “About 5,000 people have been buried, but people have not been buried for ten days because of the continuous bombardments”, explained Tetiana Lomakina, estimating that “given the number of people still under the rubble (…) , there could be around 10,000 dead. New talks between Kyiv and Moscow are expected to start in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday. Emmanuel Macron is expected to meet with Vladimir Putin on Monday or Tuesday to try to organize an evacuation operation from the city of Mariupol.