From left: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sits alongside Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, on June 21.
Leah Millis/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Rebuilding Ukraine is as much a battle of logic as it is a potential Sisyphean challenge. In Vladimir Putin’s world, smash and dominate? Or Volodymyr Zelensky’s where you can invest and repair, at the risk of seeing every gain rolled back?
The Ukraine Recovery Conference in London is taking up the challenge to show the Russian president that Ukraine’s allies are as determined to win a post-war peace, as they are to help Ukraine vanquish his illegal, unprovoked invasion.
Not for nothing did US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warn Putin by saying, “So let’s be clear, Russia is causing Ukraine’s destruction and Russia will eventually bear the cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction.”
In the meantime, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak launched a war-risk insurance framework to boost investment from the private sector.
Against a background of ongoing war, stubborn inflation, governments can’t afford to foot the whole bill — either economically or politically — despite statements to stand by Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
Like US President Joe Biden, Sunak faces an election next year, and both need to signal to tax-paying voters that they are not alone in rebuilding Ukraine.
According to the World Bank, there is a $411 billion recovery and reconstruction hole. So how and why fill a potentially bottomless pit — which is assuredly what Ukraine will become if the war drags on, and not get greenbacks stuck to the side through corruption? For four of the previous five years, it was the Ukraine reform — not recovery — conference.
Ukraine’s president vowed reforms to government, and Blinken offered millions of dollars to help: $100 million alone for “digitizing customs” to combat corruption.
The European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen, to whose institutions Ukraine is pledged to align, spoke about the importance of “clarity and transparency,” and everyone praised Zelensky’s reforms so far.
And why invest at all? Zelensky said “600 million people” worldwide depend on Ukraine’s agricultural products, adding that his country would become a net “clean energy” provider. Blinken announced $1.3 billion dollars of US aid, some earmarked to rebuild Ukraine’s power grid shattered by Russian attacks. It will be “clean, resilient, and integrated to Europe,” and one day able to export electricity.
Ultimately, the message to Putin is: Ukraine is gone. How loudly that’s heard in Moscow will depend in part on how many businesses want to put their money in harm’s way.