Kyiv’s allies vow to make Russia pay for Ukraine invasion

LONDON: Western allies on Wednesday promised to make Russia pay for invading Ukraine as governments and private investors met to fund the country’s reconstruction from the ravages of war. The World Bank has put an estimate of $14 billion on Ukraine’s immediate needs to repair the damage caused by the bitter fighting. But a recent study by the World Bank, the UN, the European Union and the Ukrainian government said the wider recovery of the economy would cost $411 billion.

“Let’s be clear: Russia is causing Ukraine’s destruction,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told delegates at the London conference. “And Russia will eventually bear the cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction,” he added. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak voiced a similar message, promising to keep tough sanctions in place “until Russia pays up,” and to use seized assets to get Ukraine back on its feet.

In the conflict overnight, Russia said it had downed three Ukrainian drones in the Moscow region, while Ukraine said its air defense systems had shot down six Iranian-designed attack drones in the west. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is overseeing a military fight-back using Western-supplied heavy weaponry to regain territory lost to Russian forces since last year. “Every day of Russian aggression brings new ruins, thousands and thousands of destroyed houses, devastated industries, burnt lives,” he told the conference by video link.