Ukraine needs US$6 billion more for recovery in next 12 months, PM says at London conference as UK, US announce new aid packages
- ‘We have set an ambitious goal of securing pledges for this amount as a result of this conference’, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told delegates
- ‘We will provide more than US$1.3 billion in additional aid to help Ukraine … US$520 million [for] energy grid’, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said
Diplomats and business leaders from dozens of countries met in London on Wednesday to drum up funds to rebuild Ukraine, a mammoth task whose cost is estimated by the World Bank at more than US$400 billion – a figure rising daily alongside the human toll of the 16-month war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new US help package at the Ukraine at the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which is both a fundraising forum and a message to Russia that Ukraine’s allies are in it for the long haul.
“We will provide more than US$1.3 billion in additional aid to help Ukraine”, Blinken said. “We’re going to invest US$520 million to help Ukraine overhaul its energy grid”.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who addressed delegates by video, said his country needed action, not just pledges. “We must move from vision to agreements and from agreements to real projects,” he said.
Ukraine needs just over US$6 billion more in the next 12 months to help recover from Russia’s war, the Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
