Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who addressed the conference by video, said his country needed action.
“We must move from vision to agreements and from agreements to real projects,” he said.
‘Years and years’ of rebuilding
Yevhen Pasenov, the deputy head of Kharkiv’s department of utility services, is responsible for infrastructure maintenance, including residential buildings. Since the war began, he’s also been involved in the city’s reconstruction efforts.
He called the scale of destruction in Kharkiv “unreal,” with more than 4,500 residential buildings damaged and some 1,600 buildings directly hit by rockets or shells. With the war still raging, he said, they have only managed to repair about 200 sites across the city so far.
But there is no other choice but to start, Pasenov said, even though there is no guarantee that the Russians won’t destroy what’s being rebuilt again.
“If we stop, it will cost two or maybe three times more to restore all these houses in a year or two,” as the elements contribute to the damage, he said, adding that it could take “years and years, maybe even decades” to rebuild the city.
Pasenov said he wants the Russians to pay for the damage they caused — some of Ukraine’s Western allies have already started talking about diverting millions of dollars in Russian assets abroad, frozen by international sanctions since the invasion, for Ukraine’s recovery.
“We can’t return people’s lives, but those who did this need to pay for this,” Pasenov said.
He also wants international leaders to come to Kharkiv and see the destruction with their own eyes.
“We won’t be able to pay for this,” Pasenov added.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
