The cost of economic damage to Ukraine caused Kremlin’s soldiers and weapons could total more than a half-trillion dollars, a former government official said on 29 Apr.
Timofey Milovanov, President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), said that data already compiled by the damaged.in.ua project shows that the final number could exceed $600 billion, according to a UNIAN news agency report.
A joint project by KSE and Ukraine’s Office of the President, the damaged.in.ua website receives and compiles reports by Ukrainian private citizens, business owners and government institution staff about property damaged or destroyed by Russian Federation (RF) troops and military activities.
Damage and destruction to state- and privately-owned property caused by the RF military and registered by the project, as of the end of April, includes roads ($29 billion), apartment buildings ($28 billion), state-owned companies ($10 billion), airports ($7 billion), railroad infrastructure ($3.5 billion), hospitals ($1.8 billion), bridges ($1.6 billion) and schools and universities ($1.1 billion), the report said.
According to website data, during the first 3 weeks of hostilities, RF forces destroyed or damaged more than 200 schools, 124 kindergartens, 39 hospitals, 88 cultural institutions, dozens of bridges, airports, power plants, and other important infrastructure facilities, more than 1,600 residential buildings, and the world’s largest aircraft, the Antonov Mriya transport plane.
A Pentagon spokesman on 28 Apr. (Kyiv time) said that since the start of the war Kremlin forces have fired more than 1,900 guided missiles at Ukrainian targets, at times targeting war-fighting capacity and infrastructure, and more often hitting civilian homes and businesses. The most recent wave of missiles hit the capital Kyiv and the town Fastiv, both in the Kyiv region. Besides long-range missiles, RF shelling, rocket artillery strikes, and aerial bombings are other causes of damage to Ukrainian property. The total value of ruined Ukrainian infrastructure from all causes at present exceeds $88 billion, and is rising daily, the spokesman said.
Petro Andriushchenko, the mayor in exile of the RF-occupied city Mariupol, on 28 Apr. accused Russian troops of breaking into the city’s history museum and stealing gold and historical artifacts dating back to the 8th century B.C. Multiple news reports showed uniformed RF soldiers removing materials from the museum.
On a 29 Apr. interview with the Ukrainian news magazine Obozrevatel’, RF opposition economist Sergei Alisashenko said that destruction of property and marauding are tactics used by the RF military for decades and that the damage and destruction in Ukraine were likely to continue.
“We didn’t see what Putin’s soldiers did in Syria? We saw it,” Alisashenko said. “Or we didn’t see what they did in Grozny, in Chechnya? Therefore to say, now, we are seeing something new…unfortunately, all the worst characteristics that one can find in the Russian people, that are in the Russian soldier, Putin has managed to drag to the surface.”
“The most astonishing part is how he (Putin) has managed to dredge up the vilest things in the human soul,” Aliashenko said.
