New Telegraph

Damage to Ukraine infrastructure reaches $60bn- World Bank

…as Britain trains Ukraine soldiers in the UK

The World Bank has said that an early estimate shows physical damage to Ukraine’s buildings and infrastructure from the war had reached roughly $60 billion.

The estimate does not include growing economic costs of the war. The amount will continue to rise as the war goes on, World Bank President David Malpass said at a conference on Thursday, reports the BBC.

In his virtual address to the conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that the country needed an estimated $7 billion per month to make up for its economic losses now and “hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild all this later.”

Zelensky asked countries that have imposed sanctions and freezes on Russian assets to use that money to help rebuild Ukraine after the war and to pay for losses suffered by other countries.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has revealed that Ukrainian troops are in the UK being trained on how to use the armoured vehicles Britain is supplying to repel Russian forces.

“I can say that we are currently training Ukrainians in Poland in the use of anti-aircraft defence, and actually in the UK in the use of armoured vehicles,” he told journalists travelling with him on his visit to India.

Johnson’s press secretary said “a couple of dozen” Ukrainian soldiers were currently in the UK for training.

The Ukrainian troops began training with vehicles donated by Britain this month, a spokesman for Johnson said.

Britain is providing Ukraine with 120 armoured patrol vehicles, including the Mastiff, which can be used as a reconnaissance or patrol vehicle. The soldiers will also be shown how to use the Samaritan ambulance, and Sultan and Samson armoured reconnaissance vehicles.

The spokesman said Britain and its allies were providing Ukrainian soldiers with new types of equipment that they may not have used before.

“It is only sensible that they get requisite training to make best use of it,” the spokesman said. “We are always conscious of anything perceived to be escalatory but clearly what is escalatory is the actions of Putin’s regime.”

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