Russia leaves 60M square meters’ worth of Ukrainian homes in ruins

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as a result of Russian aggression, about 60 million square meters of housing fund have been destroyed or significantly damaged.

This was announced by the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, Regional Development, Local Self-Government, and Urban Planning, Olena Shuliak, who spoke in an interview with Ukrinform.

"Unfortunately, since the full-scale invasion, Russia has destroyed or significantly damaged about 60 million square meters of accommodations," she said.

According to Shuliak, if before the war in Ukraine, about 10 million square meters worth of housing were put into operation every year, "three incomplete years into the big war, we have lost what we had been building for more than five years."

The People's Deputy emphasized that these reports are confirmed by various studies. For example, the World Bank, in cooperation with the Ministry of Reconstruction, assessed damage and losses in December 2023, and the housing sector was one of the most affected by Russian aggression.

"Other institutions also run calculations proving tens of millions of square meters of residential premises have been either destroyed or damaged," she said.

Shuliak emphasized the importance of providing assistance to citizens who lost their homes and jobs as a result of the war. In this regard, she said addressing the accommodation issue is "one of the key tasks" for the authorities.

As reported, the head of the working group on housing issues at the parliamentary ad hoc investigative commission for the protection of the rights of IDPs, Maksym Tkachenko, said almost 130,000 internally displaced persons were forced to return home, to the war zone or to the temporarily occupied territory, due to existing issues with accommodation and employment.