The Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2022) commenced on Monday at Lugano, Switzerland, bringing hundreds of high-level diplomats and European leaders under the same roof to help Kyiv chart a path to economic recovery.

While principles, priorities, and processes related to recovery are expected to be discussed at the conference, something akin to the ‘Marshall Plan‘ – a multi-billion dollar US-led post-WWII reconstruction programme in Western Europe – may be proposed to help Ukraine recover from the devastation of war.

As the conference gets underway, we take a look at the estimated damages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine up until now.

Also read | Russia gains ‘full control’ of Luhansk in the Donbas after Lysychansk falls

Estimating damages:

While it is difficult to put an exact monetary value on the damages caused by Vladimir Putin‘s invasion, the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) has managed to draw up an estimate of infrastructure damages based on “the analysis of several thousands of public notifications from Ukrainian citizens, the government, and local authorities about losses and damages throughout the country, as well as on the basis of public sources.”

Also read | Why Russia is raining missiles on Ukraine

Infrastructure damages:

Since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion till June 8, KSE’s estimates put infrastructure damages across several categories in the billions.

Below are some of the highlights:

– 44.8 million square meters of housing worth $39.375 billion
– 23,900 square kilometers of roads worth $30.034 billion
– 256 industrial enterprises/factories worth $11.499 billion
– 11 civilian airports and units worth $6.817 billion
– 6.3 thousand railway stations and rolling stock, 41 railway bridges worth $2.672 billion
– 304 bridges and crossings and $1.692 billion
– 656 healthcare institutions worth $1.147 billion
– 1,117 secondary and higher educational institutions worth $1.621 billion
– 104 thousand cars worth $968 million

Additionally, according to the KSE, the total estimated infrastructure damage to Ukraine stood at a whopping $103.9 billion as of June 8.

Also read | Another $820 million for Ukraine, including missile systems, says US

Estimated total economic toll:

While $103.9 billion is the estimated infrastructure damage since the beginning of the invasion, the total economic toll is likely much higher.

According to KSE, “taking into account both direct losses calculated in this project and indirect losses (GDP decline, investment cessation, outflow of labor, additional defense and social support costs, etc),” the cost could range between $564 billion to $600 billion.

Also read | Ukraine’s guided missile destroys Russian tank near Kherson | Watch

How much could it cost to rebuild Ukraine?

According to UC Berkeley economist Yuriy Gorodnichenko, the cost of reconstruction in Ukraine would be steep, based on the past experiences of Afghanistan or Iraq.

“We can also look at other measures and similar efforts that were done in the past. For example, what was the cost of reconstructing Iraq or Afghanistan? If you look at the size of these countries, the level of damage, and scale it to the Ukrainian case, you come to somewhere between $500 billion, maybe $1 trillion,” NPR quoted Gorodnichenko as saying.