War in Ukraine: in the north of kyiv, reconstruction has already begun

In recent months, a strange noise accompanies Andrii Kopylenko. When this volunteer crisscrosses the villages north of kyiv, his tires hum in contact with the footprints left on the roads by the hundreds of Russian tanks which, in February, swept to reach the capital. Destroyed bridges, rusty tank carcasses, burnt-out car graveyards… Failing to take kyiv, the enemy troops withdrew at the beginning of April, leaving behind them destruction as far as the eye could see and nearly 1,400 mowed down lives.

Before the war, Andrij, an events worker, was part of a group of creatives and activists, working together to renovate buildings on a street in central kyiv, “District 1”. A few days after the departure of the Russians, his group of friends rushes north of kyiv, distributes medicines, food… Very quickly, a new mission is essential: to rebuild, so that life can start again.

When we accompany him in May, the rain on the windshield accentuates the tragedy of the situation. Outside, a grandfather, haggard, tries to clear the perimeter of his house, of which there remains only a pile of bricks. Entering Borodyanka, 50 kilometers northwest of kyiv, Andrii breathes: “It’s as if the Russians have done everything so that no one can live here anymore…” This city of 14,000 inhabitants stretches around a central street, transformed into an alley of ruins by the bombardments.

Andrii stops in front of the post office: a huge four-storey building that served as the headquarters of the Russians. In orange vests, a dozen volunteers are busy on the first floor devastated by a fire, in a concert of broken glass. Sunday handymen are DJs, artists, models or architects. Some are even refugees from occupied cities. If they cannot return home, they make repairs to others. “The state is focused on the war and promises to rebuild, but it can’t do it, sighs Andrii Titarenko, who lost his job as an engineer with the invasion. The premises feel abandoned.” Faced with the magnitude of the cataclysm, municipalities often find themselves powerless. In Borodyanka, all the state services – from the town hall to the police, through taxes or social services – pile up in the only miraculously unscathed administrative building: one of the three schools in the city.

A titanic challenge

On her school chair, in the middle of humanitarian aid boxes, the psychologist Lioudmila Boïko tries to help her neighbors to live with their traumas. She herself lost her sister and her nephew, whose bodies have not been found. On March 1 and 2, the Russians bombed eight nine-story buildings, cut in half in seconds, killing at least 41 people. Lioudmila’s tired face lights up when she speaks of the “dozens of volunteers who gave up their lives so that we could rebuild ours”. “They give us the strength to live, to raise our heads,” she says.

Andrii is already imagining that refugees from Donbass could settle here and revitalize a territory that was once isolated. But his dream comes up against bureaucracy, donations that are running out, and sometimes local officials who prefer to wait and rebuild themselves, in order to pocket some of the funds. On the way back, the 30-year-old goes on reconnaissance in a nearby village, lost in the forest. Half of the buildings are destroyed. Andrii promises the mayor, a bit lost in her roofless living room, to send reinforcements within the week. The chaos sown by the Russians seems endless.

Across the country, the destruction is colossal: 300 bridges, nearly 14% of roads, a fifth of medical infrastructure, 2,200 schools, universities and nurseries. Since February 24, around thirty volunteers from the Kyiv School of Economics have been carefully listing the damage, based on social networks, satellite images or information collected in the liberated territories. “We quickly understood that quantifying would be the first step in reconstruction,” explains Daryna Marchak, the economist at the head of the project.

Estimated cost: $182 billion

This summer, the Ukrainian authorities presented their needs to revive the country’s economy: 750 billion dollars, or 18 times its total budget for 2021. The cost of reconstruction alone is estimated at 182 billion dollars. The government wants to build “better” energy-efficient buildings with mandatory bunkers. Despite the ongoing war, “it’s not too early” to think about it, defends Daryna Marchak. “If we start looking for funding in two years, we won’t get it for four,” she explains.

“Russia will pay,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, director of the Kyiv School of Economics and adviser to President Zelensky. In addition to Russian private assets – frozen, and which could potentially be sold – Ukraine calls on the G7 countries to seize the reserves of the Russian central bank abroad, i.e. almost half of the sum necessary for the reconstruction. A pious wish, as the legal and political barriers seem insurmountable.

On the ground, this debate seems very theoretical. At Borodyanka, children bounce among the ruins in the summer heat. Trampolines have been installed in the central square, in front of the statue of national poet Taras Shevchenko. Half of the 14,000 inhabitants have already returned from their exile. “People are coming back but they have nowhere to live,” laments Georhiy Yerko, the acting mayor. To rebuild, the elected official relies on a mosaic of private and institutional investors. “Latvia is going to finance a school, an American company has chosen the crèche and the outpatient clinic”, lists the mayor. But the needs remain enormous and winter is already looming.

“Remove the rubble, build our homes”

Behind the stadium, small white booths display Ukrainian and Polish flags. Installed at the end of May, these first modular dwellings provided by Warsaw accommodate nearly 300 people, especially residents of the bars of demolished buildings.

In the kitchen of one of these blocks, Masha prepares sandwiches. “We want us to rebuild in exactly the same way, and in the same place”, says the one who fled Borodyanka on February 24, when the idea is already emerging to turn these destroyed buildings into a museum. “The authorities do not ask us for our opinion, so we are unhappy”, gets angry this young thin mother. On the ruins of their buildings, several neighbors have spread garish yellow posters. “We have lived here for forty years, remove the rubble, build our houses”, is it written in English, intended for politicians and international journalists. Ihor Davidenko, the leader of the modular village, rolls his eyes. The town hall hopes to build a housing complex a little further in the city. “You understand that for the moment, we are doing what is possible. What we really want, we will achieve later, because today is war,” he grumbles.

If the Russians have left, the danger remains very present, 120 kilometers from the Belarusian border. Should we already rebuild, at the risk of the return of the fighting? The question already arose eight years ago, recalls economist Tymofiy Mylovanov, when the front line stopped 15 kilometers from Mariupol. The authorities then made it a showcase city on the Sea of ​​Azov. “We have to rebuild, because each time we step back, the darkness gains one more meter”, philosophizes this former Minister of the Economy. A Ukrainian Sisyphus myth.

This article is from our special issue “We Ukrainians”on newsstands August 24, in partnership with BFMTV.