A National Recovery Strategy for Ukraine
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From the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion, it has been clear that the consequences of the war would not be limited to physical destruction. What Ukraine faced was a systemic breakdown of infrastructure, the economy, social ties, and governance mechanisms. Within the first few months of the hostilities, the country suffered tremendous losses, and it became evident that the scale of the necessary recovery ahead would be unprecedented. This immediately underscored the need for strategic planning: The more complex the challenge, the more systemic the response must be.
Damage assessments conducted by international partners recorded billions of dollars in losses just for the first year after the full-scale invasion. Subsequent international assessments have shown a significant increase in losses in Ukraine’s infrastructure and other assets. Yet the indirect consequences have been no less significant: The most dire challenge of all is the demographic crisis fuelled by mass migration. All of these factors have triggered a deep systemic shock, one that exists to this day and will persist until a sustainable ceasefire is established.
During a protracted war, recovery is not merely about repairing what was destroyed. It is a strategic choice and an opportunity not just to rebuild, but to reimagine the state, the economy, and national infrastructure. But in the absence of clear priorities, financing, coordination mechanisms, and performance criteria, Ukraine’s recovery process has become fragmented. This is at best ineffective and at worst harmful.
It is increasingly evident that Ukraine’s way out of this lack of strategic vision is through a coherent, comprehensive, and legitimate framework. A national recovery strategy can fulfill that role, not only uniting institutions, but also setting up a shared vision of the future. It is a political and governance decision to enable the country to chart the most rational path forward during wartime. The development of a national recovery strategy is not a bureaucratic formality; it is a necessary precondition for turning recovery into a structured, transparent, and results-oriented process.
The idea of a national recovery strategy is not an attempt to create a separate strategic instrument that would be inconsistent with the Public Investment Management Reform (PIM Reform), which is implemented by Ukraine and broadly supported by international partners. This strategy can be fully integrated into the PIM Reform framework to serve as a safeguard for public spending that funds wartime reconstruction objectives and ensures efficient postwar recovery.
As long as such a unified strategy is absent, Ukraine’s recovery ecosystem will remain vulnerable. The country is already moving in the direction of adopting a comprehensive framework, and the question is when such a framework can be implemented. The longer this strategic decision is delayed, the greater the losses caused by duplication, inconsistency, and missed opportunities will be.