Although the war continues and active hostilities are taking place in certain areas of our country, in the liberated regions, people have taken up construction equipment instead of
weapons.
Thousands of kilometers of roads, many railways, hundreds and hundreds of infrastructure objects have been damaged or destroyed by Russian missiles. Now it’s time to rebuild
everything. The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov spoke about the state’s plans to repair the destroyed roads in an exclusive interview to the Ukrainian
newspaper “Fakty”.
▪ Roads destruction
In general, we say that 23 thousand km of roads were damaged. We are talking about different levels of destruction. Ukravtodor is responsible for 8 000 km of these roads, there
are roads of state value.
There are areas where only the top layer is damaged by armored vehicles. It will need to remove the top layer and repair, because the basic is normal.Of course, there are areas that have been completely destroyed – there are funnels from explosions, burned equipment, destroyed underpasses. In this case everything needs to be
rebuilt.
▪ The amount of losses according to the Ministry of Infrastructure and experts According to what we see now, and the forecasts of experts from the Kyiv School of Economics, losses range from $ 85 to 100 million. This includes transport infrastructure, airports, ports, the entire network of major roads and bridges, of which more than 300 have
been destroyed.
▪ The full-scale war is still going on, now in these conditions we began to rebuild the infrastructure We want to return liberated and unblocked regions to normal life, at least at the basic level.
If we don’t do this, people will not be able to return, because we will not organize basic things – humanitarian aid will not get there, products will not be brought to supermarkets,
hospitals will not work there, because medicines will not be delivered.
People will not arrive and will not see what happened to their homes. If, for example, they are destroyed, then repairs or restoration will begin with the help of the state.
Therefore, the basic level is to restore the transport links of the destroyed cities. This question is decisive.
▪ Destruction of the railway sector, railway infrastructure
Like the road infrastructure, the railway is suffering. Railway bridges, tracks, stations, railway stations are being destroyed. We recover fairly quickly, where it is possible.For example, the Kyiv-Chernihiv train, which was launched quickly, helps a lot in rebuilding the city and bringing it back to life.
▪ Ukrainian airspace and seaports are blocked. Will cars and rail transport be able to take over all the necessary exports and imports?
The load on these kinds of transport has increased significantly, twice or even more.
Of course, not everything was ready for such a situation, especially on the borders with our Western partners. It is extremely important to start the economy. We are actively working
to successfully operate and finance all military spending by 100%, or even 200%.
Then the export of products of the agricultural and metallurgical sectors. Our ambitious goal is to cover all the necessary volumes of imports and exports.
But if by the end of the summer we reach more than 50% of the normal pre-war regime, when all the ports in the Black Sea were working, it will be good for us.
And we see the first good results – metallurgical plants have started working. Exports of agricultural products began. This process takes some time, it is impossible to do everything
in one or two days. It’s about months. But we see the mood of the business investing in capacity, and we see the support of our international partners.
▪ The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine works on the extension of European sanctions against the Russian Federation.
We work a lot, in constant contact with our Western partners, with many relevant associations. We wrote many official letters and conducted negotiations.
There are three blocks of sanctions. Most importantly, the sanctions that have worked the fastest are the closure of airspace for Russian airlines. And this has hit all their national carriers hard.
Most Russian planes are at airports and do not fly anywhere. Some airports do not accept them, flights are made only to their satellite countries, of which two or three of the whole
world now. In essence, these are bankrupt airlines. We clearly see and know this.
Of course, these airlines are trying to circumvent the sanctions, launching other airlines with registrations in third countries to be able to carry passenger traffic.
But we are watching this closely and when we receive signals, we turn to our Western partners. In any case, I can say that these sanctions have worked successfully.
The other two areas are ports and roadblocks.
The United Kingdom was the first to impose port restrictions. It’s very competent,
meaningful. And everything was so spelled out that it is very difficult to avoid the sanctions.We start not from what flag the ship is flying, but from who is the customer. If we say that
these are Russian companies, public or private, which are on the sanctions list and are the customer of the service, then we do not care under what flag and to whom this ship belongs.
It is important for us that Russian exports do not take place, that the Russian economy is isolated.
We believe that this is completely fair. They have blocked our ports – let the whole civilized world block the ports for them.
#stoprussia
Government Office for the Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration

Source: main points of the interview of Oleksandr Kubrakov, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, “Fakty”, Ukraine
April 27, 2022