(Reuters) – Ukraine needs rapid assistance totalling $1 billion to return its electricity grid and centralised heating system to normal operation, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday.
Shmyhal, in an address to a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Russian air attacks in recent weeks had damaged half the country’s key infrastructure facilities.
Restoration work, he said, required a three-stage process.
“But the main priority now is the stage of survival — quickly restоring critical infrastructure and the energy sector to get through the winter,” Shmyhal told the meeting, according to media reports and his own Telegram channel.
“The approximate cost of urgent help for the power sector stands at $500 million,” Shmyhal said.
“The approximate cost of urgent help for the centralised heating sector stands at a further $500 million.”
Russia has launched missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and other sites nearly each week since October.
Energy experts have been working to restore the grid in the Black Sea city of Odesa after weekend strikes on two facilities left 1.5 million customers without power and put its port temporarily out of action.
In his address to the OECD, Shmyhal quoted World Bank figures as saying Ukraine needed $349 billion to proceed with restoration work as of last June.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
