20 years and USD 14.5 billion needed to restore Russian-occupied Mariupol - mayor

Boichenko said this on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel.

The authorities of Ukrainian Mariupol, Donetsk region, are already preparing several plans for the city's recovery after its de-occupation from Russia - a model of rapid recovery and full-fledged revival.

“Since September last year, together with our regional team and the Mariupol municipality, we have been working to answer the main question: how quickly we return to the city of Mariupol, what we have to do in the first 3 months, six months, 12 months and 18 months in terms of stabilizing the situation - the work of the utility sector, all functional areas, education, and medicine. We already have clear answers and we presented them at ReBuild Ukraine in Warsaw in February, describing our model for the rapid recovery of Mariupol,” Boichenko said. 

Rapid recovery is about stabilizing the situation so that communications, transportation, schools and hospitals can be restored in a safe and comfortable manner.

“But the issue of restoration, revival of the half-million city that we saw and imagined, a modern, European, Ukrainian city that we have been building for 7 years, respectively, these two months of full-fledged aggression by the Russian Federation, which destroyed 50% of the city, will take 20 years to restore. If we are talking about critical restoration, critical infrastructure, stabilization of the situation, restoration of all municipal areas and directions, it will cost UAH 14 billion,” the mayor said. 

Boichenko plans to liberate the city in late summer and begin reconstruction in the fall.

“When we talk about the full-fledged revival of the city, the 5-10-15-20 years that we will spend on the formation of a new strong, Ukrainian, European city that will inspire the whole of Ukraine, it is USD 14.5 billion,” the mayor emphasized and added that the source of funding for the restoration of Mariupol should be reparations money, seized Russian accounts in the world.

• On March 19, Russian state news agencies claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a 'working trip' to temporarily Russian-occupied Mariupol.

• On the same day, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that Putin's nighttime visit was caused not only by security issues, but also by the dictator's attempts to conceal the true state of the city.

• On March 20, Mariupol City Council member Dmytro Zabavin told Espreso that there had been no civilian casualties in Mariupol in almost a month of explosions - all hits were exclusively targeted.

• Russian forces are massively demolishing entire neighborhoods in the temporarily occupied city of Mariupol, Donetsk region. This applies not only to the outskirts, but also to the central streets. As of March 20, the Russian troops have already demolished about 300 high-rise buildings.