he Welsh government has allocated GBP 35 million for military assistance to Ukraine, Scotland has allocated GBP 65 million. Wales has accepted 3,000 Ukrainian refugees, Scotland – 6,000, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “The Welsh Government has contributed £35m to our military support for Ukraine, and Welsh families have taken in 3,000 refugees,” Johnson said on Twitter Monday.
According to him, he discussed with the First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford the continuation of joint work against Russian aggression.
Johnson also wrote that he also talked with the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon.
“I’ve just spoken to Nicola Sturgeon to herald the success of UK collaboration supporting Ukraine. I thanked the Scottish Government’s £65 million contribution in upping UK’s military aid to Ukraine to £2.3 billion & efforts to help house 6,000 Ukrainian refugees,” he wrote.
Earlier, materials appeared in the media that allegedly the Welsh government did not agree on the allocation of GBP 35 million as part of a new package of British military assistance to Ukraine for GBP 1 billion.
The first tranche of EUR1 billion of the new EUR9 billion macro-financial assistance program for Ukraine will be received at the end of July, Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis said.
“In July … by the end of the month,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the international Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano on Monday.
Dombrovskis found it difficult to estimate when and in what volumes the next tranches will be received, noting that work is underway on this issue.
As reported, in June the government managed to significantly increase official external financing, which exceeded $4 billion compared to $1.5 billion in May, with an estimated deficit of $5 billion. According to Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, in July the government expects to maintain the same significant volumes of external financing, as in June. In particular, in July, the second tranche for approximately $1.3 billion of a grant from the United States is expected to be received.
The national program for the restoration and modernization of housing and infrastructure in the regions of Ukraine involves $150-250 billion in investments.
Such figures are published in the Ukraine Recovery Vision “Strong European Ukraine is a magnet for international investments,” presented at a conference in Lugano.
In particular, a study of the situation of displaced persons by region (internal and external migration) will be conducted, a unified state register of citizens in need of housing will be created, the purchase of existing residential apartments will be provided to replenish social and temporary housing funds, the practice of non-profitable rental housing will be introduced, etc.
The national program provides for the construction of new and restoration of destroyed facilities with energy efficiency and barrier-free facilities; renewal of engineering networks with the introduction of innovations (centralized cooling, heat pumps, biomass, etc.); reconstruction and construction of drinking water purification stations, equipment of modern regional drinking water monitoring laboratories, etc.
At the same time, new construction of residential infrastructure must be carried out in accordance with the best practices of urban planning. In particular, a fair transformation of monofunctional cities, the creation of a network of logistics hubs, etc. are proposed.
As part of the national program, the pilot construction of buildings with close to zero energy consumption (NZEB) is planned, including through the restoration of destroyed buildings in accordance with the requirements of the NZEB.
The national program emphasizes the importance of providing the sector with critical materials. In particular, it is planned to localize the production of windows (5-6 million units per year), localize the production of glass (300,000 tonnes per year), localize the production of thermal insulation materials (about 13 million cubic meters per year).
The plan for the restoration of Ukraine in 2022-2032 includes a number of projects in the field of agro-industrial complex, including the construction of irrigation systems on an area of 1 million hectares, as well as the transformation of the country into an “export food factory” by stimulating and developing the processing of plant products.
The corresponding plans were posted on the Ukraine Recovery Plan website.
In addition, over the next decade, it is planned to develop the Ukrainian agro-industrial complex in the following areas: development of agricultural engineering, bioenergy independence, preservation of the agricultural sector under the blockade of ports, meat and dairy independence, fruits and vegetables of Ukraine, return of farmland into economic circulation, promoting the transition of the agro-industrial complex to “green” growth, development of reclamation systems, development of seed production, construction of factories for the production of hybrid seeds and prompt recovery of the agro-industrial complex after the war.
In addition, among the priorities are the comprehensive planning of spatial development and land use in the territory of communities and mapping the territory of Ukraine and the implementation of the national geospatial data infrastructure.
According to the data on the project website, the Ukraine Recovery Plan is aimed at accelerating sustainable economic growth. The plan defines a list of national programs to achieve key results.
In total, the program provides for the implementation of 850 projects during 2022-2032, which will allow Ukraine to enter the TOP-25 countries in the world in terms of the Human Capital Index and the Economic Complexity Index.
Internal and external debt of Uraine in 2009-2022
SSC of Ukraine
Against the background of the war and with the aim of reconstruction, Switzerland will strengthen support for Ukraine, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said.
“Switzerland will double the funding in the framework of bilateral cooperation with Ukraine to more than 100 million francs by 2023 … Responding to the call of the Prime Minister (Denis Shmyhal), we will allocate at least 15 million francs for digital transformation,” he said at the Conference on the restoration of Ukraine in Lugano on Tuesday.
The President added that Switzerland also allocates funds to Ukraine on a multilateral basis through the UN, the World Bank, the EBRD and other organizations.
Cassis noted that the principles formalized later on Tuesday in the Luhansk Declaration would make it easier for Ukraine to raise funding for the Recovery Plan.
