We will always live with the understanding that the Russians can return - Kubrakov
The Great Restoration and the Ukrainian Marshall Plan. 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 have been damaged or destroyed by Russian missiles.
Now it's time to rebuild everything. In an exclusive interview with Faktam Tyzhnya, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov spoke about the state’s plans to repair the destroyed roads.
Why such a rush that has already been restarted and how the ministry is working to impose sanctions on the aggressor country, read in our interview.
- Minister, tell us, which roads were destroyed and damaged, and which of them have already begun to repair?
- In general, we say that 23 thousand km of roads were damaged in one way or another. We are talking about different levels of destruction. Of these, Ukravtodor is responsible for 8,000 km of roads, ie roads of state importance.
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If we talk about Ukravtodor, we have a network of roads - about 24 thousand km. And if we talk about 8 thousand km, it is a third of the roads.
There are, of course, areas where only the top layer of armored vehicles is damaged. There is a normal basis. You will just need to remove the top layer and repair.
Thus, in peacetime, the Boryspil highway was repaired in a relatively short period of time (several weeks). Then the top layer was removed because the base was normal, and the top layer was laid again.
Of course, there are areas that have been completely destroyed - there are funnels from explosions, burned equipment, destroyed underpasses. That's where everything needs to be rebuilt.
- According to the Ministry and experts, what is the amount of losses?
- According to what we see now, and the forecasts of experts of the Kiev School of Economics, the figures range from $ 85 to 100 million.
But this includes transport infrastructure in our cities, airports, ports, the entire network of major roads and bridges, of which more than 300 have been destroyed to date.
- Why did they start rebuilding the infrastructure now, when the full-scale war is still going on?
- If we talk about liberated or unblocked regions, we want these cities to return to normal life, at least at the basic level. To do this, at least the destroyed bridges must be restored.
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.
- Is there a request from the military to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure?
- Of course, we coordinate with our military, and only after their permission do we start doing everything. In some cases, they even ask us to speed up.
For example, yesterday my colleagues and I visited the Kharkiv region. There, certain roads did not have time to be repaired within the framework of the Large Construction project during the previous two years. These are not very priority and important highways, but they are roads of territorial importance.
Now these roads have become the way of life in those cities, and these roads deliver humanitarian aid, evacuate the wounded.
And we clearly heard a request from the military: Please do something urgent.
Therefore, of course, in such cases we make emergency repairs within one or two weeks. And we heard this rather powerful request from military doctors.
- That is because of emergency of this site military medics can't evacuate wounded?
- They can, but we are wasting time. And time in the first minutes, hours is the most expensive. With such a neighbor, even if everything ends well now and our guys win, we will probably live with the understanding that they can return.
And it will be as long as there is that regime, those people, such a vision and such a worldview. We will just be constantly ready for this, but this is not a reason not to live now, not to rebuild the economy, not to start our enterprises.
- You mentioned the Great Construction project. How many roads have been built in the last two years? And which, unfortunately, are now damaged by the Russian invasion?
- Speaking of two years, about 10,000 km of state roads and approximately 5,000 km of local roads have been repaired or built, for which regional state administrations are responsible, and now military civilian administrations.
In general, we can say that about 15 thousand km of roads have been repaired in these two years. This is a lot, they can not be overlooked, because all major roads have been repaired.
Repaired across the country - from East to West, from North to South, and within the country as well.
I understand that there was a lot of criticism when politics came to the fore. Al The dry residue is as follows: all these roads have worked and continue to operate as the main channels through which humanitarian aid is delivered.
As millions of our citizens evacuated from their regions to calmer areas, they also traveled these roads, and everyone finally saw that normal roads appeared in the country.
And most importantly, our military is also evacuating its wounded and delivering everything they need on these roads.
Earlier, the journey from the Dnieper to Pokrovsk took five hours, because this road simply did not exist. I was there this weekend. Now it's two hours, two and a half maximum.
We have built a lot of roads in Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions. These are all areas where there were no roads. For example, Sumy could not be reached by a normal road. This possibility appeared only last year. The same is true in Kharkiv region. All roads in the Kharkiv region, including the Kharkiv district, were built last year or the year before.
The same is true in Chernihiv region. For example, the road Kyiv - Chernihiv, our main route M-01. There are areas where active hostilities took place. Everything from the barrier to the underground passages was destroyed within the settlements. Not only the top layer was destroyed. There are funnels and complete destruction.
Then we go along the highway - there are broken bridges. We drive to Chernihiv - there are burnt gas stations around this route.
It is clear that the road could not but be damaged. This is a difficult story. 20-25% of the entire route is damaged one way or another.
And this is a road of the first category, a classroom that has just been built. And everyone probably remembers the video of our drones seemingly filming the work of bayraktars. The occupying tanks were pounding from above, just like in a computer game. But what was clearly visible there was a cool road with markings.
- Mr. Alexander, what damage has been done to the railway sector, railway infrastructure?
- As well as road infrastructure, the railway also suffers. Railway bridges, tracks, stations, railway stations are being destroyed. Where possible, we recover fairly quickly.
For example, the Kyiv-Chernihiv train, which was launched quickly, significantly helps to rebuild the city and bring it back to life.
We are also rebuilding the bridge in the direction of Irpen. There is a rather complicated construction, but in two or three weeks we will launch the connection again. Every day something happens because the fighting has not gone anywhere.
Thanks to our military, Kyiv is relatively calm, but in some regions of our country, where active hostilities continue, of course, infrastructure, trains and people suffer. There are dead.
- 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 two modes of transport has increased significantly, twice or even more.
Of course, not everyone was ready for such a situation, especially on the borders with our Western partners. You are absolutely right, now 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%.
The army is the most important thing now. And at the same time it is necessary to support all social payments in full. Now all this is possible, but it will be much easier for the state to do it when the economy works.
That is why we are now trying hard to set up logistics chains for the import of products and raw materials, because many companies have lost their supply chains. And now what they received through the ports must be delivered by rail.
Then the export of finished 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 very good for us, to be honest.
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.
Things that used to be simply impossible to do, such as adding more people, opening new border crossings, are now being done, are being met, and are being done fairly quickly.
- Minister, tell us about the work of the Ministry on the extension of European sanctions against the Russian Federation. I know that the ministry is doing a lot for this, including the blockade of the infrastructure.
- It will, of course, have a negative impact on their economy and their business. We work a lot, in constant contact with our Western partners, with many relevant associations. We wrote many official letters and held many talks.
I can single out three blocks. 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 x planes stand 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 to the whole world. 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. Very competent, meaningful. And everything was so spelled out that it is very difficult to circumvent 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. Let them stay at home with their export products. This will hit them hard enough.