World Bank estimates Ukraine infrastructure damage at $60 billion so far

Washington: Physical damage to Ukraine's buildings and infrastructure from Russia's invasion has reached roughly $60 billion and will rise further as the war continues, World Bank President David Malpass said on Thursday.

Malpass told a World Bank conference on Ukraine's financial assistance needs that the early estimate of "narrow" damage costs does not include the growing economic costs of the war to Ukraine.

"Of course the war is still ongoing, so those costs are rising," Malpass said.


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a virtual address to the conference, outlined far bigger costs and financing needs. He told participants in interpreted remarks that Ukraine needs $7 billion per month to make up for economic losses caused by Russia's invasion of his country.

"And we will need hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild all this later," Zelenskyy said.

He said the global community needed to exclude Russia immediately from international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and others, and said all countries "must immediately be prepared to break up all relations with Russia."

The conference on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings included finance officials from a number of countries, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who earlier said the United States would double its direct non-military aid pledge to $1 billion.