Ukraine recovery summit opens, overshadowed by Kyiv-Warsaw row

GDANSK, Poland – A landmark conference on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction opened on June 25 in Poland without President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is snubbing the event over a diplomatic row with ally Warsaw.

Kyiv needs hundreds of billions of dollars to repair the damage caused by Russia’s invasion and is trying to whip up international support for investment.

But the event comes with no end to the fighting in sight and could be overshadowed by the spat between Ukraine and Poland – triggered when Ukraine named a military unit after an insurgent group that took part in the massacres of Poles during World War II.

The area around Gdansk’s Amberexpo conference centre was cordoned off by numerous armed police officers deployed to prevent provocations, as an ultranationalist Polish party has called for an anti-Ukraine demonstration later in the day, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

Leaders from Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Sweden, as well as EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council head Antonio Costa will meet in the north-eastern port city of Gdansk to urge businesses and countries to pour cash into Ukraine when the conflict ends.

Kyiv’s delegation – led by Zelensky in previous years – will be headed up by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

A joint report by Ukraine, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the EU in February estimated post-war reconstruction in Ukraine would cost around US$588 billion (S$762.3 billion).

But with no progress in US-brokered talks on halting the fighting, convincing investors to support Kyiv’s recovery has been a challenge.

Still, Svyrydenko has said her country plans to “sign a number of important agreements with international partners, particularly to strengthen our energy sector”.

Aside from energy, critical infrastructure and logistics, discussions are also set to focus for the first time on Ukraine’s security capacities.

In December, the European Union approved a €90 billion loan for Ukraine – most of it earmarked for defence.

But according to Glib Vyshlinsky, director of the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv, “it will be impossible for Ukraine to defend the country without reconstruction in the process”.

“We need to provide critical services and housing to people in Ukraine who pay taxes and support the military,” he said.

Ukraine’s economy has been decimated by the war and Kyiv relies on external funding to keep afloat amid spiralling costs of defending against the Russian invasion.

Zelensky’s decision not to attend the summit comes after nationalist Polish president Karol Nawrocki revoked a state order given to the Ukrainian leader.

Nawrocki – at loggerheads with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk – was riled by Zelensky’s move to name a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

The UPA killed thousands of Polish civilians between 1943 and 1945 in Volhynia – a Ukrainian region that was part of Poland before World War II.

But some in Ukraine revere them for having fought both the Nazis and the Soviets in their quest for a Ukrainian state.

The argument over their status and memorials to UPA figures has long cast a shadow over diplomatic relations between the allies and neighbours.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said on June 24 that Kyiv hoped the row would not spoil the summit.

Kyiv wanted to “avoid any unnecessary politicisation of this international event” in order to “focus on pragmatism as well as concrete decisions in favour of Ukraine”, he said.

Seeking to distance himself from the nationalist president and right-wing opposition, pro-European Tusk said he hoped the event would “be a kind of step forward or a way to defuse the emotional escalation”. AFP