Global Courant 2023-05-20 20:28:34
Vadym Boychenko, Mayor of Mariupol, at his office at the Town Hall of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Wednesday, January 12, 2022.
Christopher Occhicone | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The exiled Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol has vowed to rebuild his decimated former city as it fell to the Russian occupier a year ago.
The seaside city, whose steel industry was once an economic powerhouse for the nation, saw its last Ukrainian troops withdraw a year ago Saturday, after nearly three months of intense fighting.
But Vadym Boychenko is not deterred. And he has a billion-dollar plan to revive his city if the Russians are driven out.
“We are working hard to prepare the necessary plans and recovery strategies so that when the city is liberated we are fully prepared and do not waste time,” the mayor, who now lives elsewhere in Ukraine, told CNBC. “Now is the time when we must prepare our return to Mariupol as efficiently as possible,” he added. CNBC spoke to Boychenko in April and May for this story.
However, Boychenko, 45, was under no illusions as he described the immense devastation in Mariupol and the financial hurdles facing Ukraine as the war in Russia enters its 500th day.
“Maripol is one of the most devastated cities in Ukraine today. The occupying forces damaged more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure,” he said. The strategic port city endured more brutality at the hands of Russian troops in two months than it did in two years under Nazi occupation during World War II, the mayor added.
Russian soldiers work to clear the territory of the Azovstal steel plant during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, May 22, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
Mariupol was once home to nearly half a million people. Now the population has been reduced to about 100,000, although Boychenko adds that the current figure is difficult to assess due to a lack of reporting in the city.
He left Mariupol two days after Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine in what would become Europe’s largest air, land and sea assault since World War II.
As the Russian bombing intensified in the city, Boychenko learned that his grandmother was taking shelter alongside pregnant women and families with small children in the halls of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater.
On March 16, 2022, the royal theater in the city center became the location of one of the deadliest known attacks on civilians since the start of the war. Boychenko’s grandmother did not survive her injuries from the airstrike.
The attack on the theater came a week after Russian bombs destroyed a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol. The bombings and images of bloodied pregnant women being evacuated from the rubble sparked international outrage.
A view shows the construction of a theater destroyed during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine on April 10, 2022. Photo taken with a drone.
Pavel Klimov | Reuters
Boychenko said indiscriminate Russian shelling damaged nearly 20 hospitals, more than 60 schools and nearly 90 cultural sites in Mariupol.
He said Mariupol’s high-rise residential buildings suffered the most damage, with more than 50% of the buildings flattened by Russian shelling. If proven, what he claims could be war crimes under international humanitarian law.
“The situation with the basic life support systems is difficult, there is almost no water, gas or electricity supply,” he said, adding that repairing the city’s critical infrastructure is his first priority and is expected to take about two years .
Russia has previously said its troops in Ukraine are not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and that the attacks on the theater and maternity hospital were staged.
‘Mariopol reborn’
An aerial photo taken on April 12, 2022, shows the city of Mariupol during the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
Andrei Borodulin | AFP | Getty Images
Despite early Russian advances in the war, Ukraine seized large swaths of territory and in many places drove out opposition using Western money and weapons. Ukraine is also reportedly planning a new offensive to further push back the invading Kremlin forces.
The Ukrainian military’s successes have given officials hope they can return to the now-occupied territories if the Russians are driven out.
Boychenko’s plan, called “Mariupol reborn,, consists of two phases: the rapid rehabilitation of critical infrastructure, followed by projects to rebuild and revitalize the city.
The resumption of basic services such as water supply, electricity and the reopening of hospitals are some of the immediate concerns that will be addressed in the first phase. He estimates that Ukraine needs about $378 million in investment for the first phase.
Boychenko said the second phase of the project is expected to cost about $15.6 billion, but added that the figure is based on preliminary assessments.
“Together with our international partners and the World Bank, we will assess the extent of destruction and record damage to Mariupol,” he said, adding that the current price tag is only an estimate.
In March, the government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission and the United Nations the cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction projects at $411 billion. The group said the main needs are primarily in rebuilding transportation infrastructure, housing and energy systems.
Before Russia’s invasion last February, Mariupol was affectionately known as the mighty Ukrainian city with a fiery, steely heart.
“It was a powerful industrial and business center with two major metallurgical companies and a seaport,” Boychenko said when asked about the city’s contribution to Kyiv’s economy before the war.
A local resident reacts as he speaks outside an apartment building badly damaged during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 18, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
“Mariupol produced about 12 million tons of steel per year, which is 4.5% of Ukraine’s gross domestic product and 7% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings,” he said, adding that Mariupol’s steel industry employs about 50,000 created jobs.
Bee nearly $70 billionUkraine’s exports in 2021 will be led by the country’s agricultural and metal industries.
Both industries are served by the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, one of Ukraine’s busiest shipping lanes responsible for the export of agricultural products, coal and steel.
Olena Lennon, a professor in New Haven University’s national security department, said one of Russia’s main goals in capturing Mariupol was to block access to the port in an attempt to further worsen Ukraine’s economy.
“The Sea of Azov port in Mariupol is one of the most important Ukrainian ports for both industrial and agricultural products,” Lennon told CNBC.
“By denying Ukraine access to the port, the Russians were not only trying to prevent Ukraine from becoming a prosperous state, but they were also denying Ukraine the ability to support its wartime economy,” said Lennon, who hails from the southeastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
She added that while Mariupol’s coastline on the Sea of Azov is strategic, since 2014 the once-industrious coastal city has also become a “poster child” of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression.
“Mariupol resisted that occupation and became a symbol of Ukrainian patriotism in a sea of what was seen as pro-Russian influence,” said Lennon, explaining that Russian forces were eager to level the city to the ground despite that they later had to rebuild parts of it.
“It’s never about controlling these cities to live a different life or to preserve infrastructure. It’s about undermining Ukrainian sovereignty and undermining the Ukrainian state,” she said. “There is no respect for populations.”
