Direct damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure from the war reached $170 billion – KSE

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the total amount of direct damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure has reached almost $170 billion (as of November 2024). Compared to the beginning of 2024, this figure has increased by $12.6 billion due to new missile attacks and hostilities. The housing stock, transportation infrastructure, and energy sector suffered the greatest losses. These estimates were presented by the KSE Institute.

Residential buildings suffered the most, with losses estimated at $60 billion. 236 thousand objects were damaged or destroyed, including 209 thousand private houses, 27 thousand high-rise buildings, and another 600 dormitories. The greatest destruction was recorded in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kherson regions.

The damage to the transportation infrastructure amounted to $38.5 billion. More than 26 thousand kilometers of roads have been destroyed, losses in the railroad sector amount to $4.3 billion, port infrastructure – $0.85 billion, aviation – $2 billion. Private motor vehicles lost $2.2 billion, with 260,000 cars damaged or destroyed.

The energy sector suffered losses of $14.6 billion. Several large power plants were completely destroyed, generating facilities, high-voltage substations, and oil and gas infrastructure were destroyed.

Industry, construction and services lost $14.4 billion, and the agricultural sector lost $10.3 billion. More than 130,000 pieces of agricultural machinery, 4 million tons of grain storage and 16,000 hectares of perennial crops were destroyed. The fighting and fires have damaged 298 thousand hectares of forests worth $4.5 billion.

The education sector suffered losses of $7.3 billion, with more than 4,000 educational institutions damaged or destroyed. The healthcare sector lost $4.3 billion due to the destruction of hospitals and clinics. A total of 1,554 thousand medical facilities were damaged.

The cultural heritage and sports infrastructure lost $4 billion, the housing and utilities sector – $3.5 billion, and telecommunications – $1.2 billion.

The assessment was carried out by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) analytical team in cooperation with the Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, and in cooperation with other relevant ministries and the National Bank of Ukraine, with the assistance of USAID and UK Dev.

As GMK Center reported earlier, as of January 2024, the amount of direct damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure during the war reached almost $155 billion. The housing stock remained in first place in terms of the amount of damage. Thus, in almost a year of war, infrastructure losses increased by $15 billion. In 2023, this amount reached more than $11 billion.