Ukraine says it expects to sign over €10 billion in deals at Poland forum
Ukraine Recovery Conference Highlights and Implications
By Anna Pruchnicka and Emanuele Berro
Major Announcements and Agreements
GDANSK, Poland, June 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine expects to sign deals worth more than €10 billion euros over the next two days at a reconstruction conference in Poland, its prime minister said on Thursday, as the European Union transferred the first tranche of a big loan to Kyiv.
The announcement at the start of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in the Baltic port city of Gdansk struck a positive tone for an event that had looked likely to be overshadowed by a row between Warsaw and Kyiv over World War Two-era massacres.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Kyiv expected to sign more than 160 agreements at the conference, taking place after more than four years of war following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"The challenges facing our continent are existential... We're forced to innovate to survive, and this has become our superpower," she said. "So Ukraine empowers European defence. Ukraine empowers energy resilience."
She also said on social media platform X that on the sidelines of the URC, Ukraine signed a $3.39 billion agreement with the World Bank under the First Growth and Jobs Development Policy Operation (DPO).
EU and International Financial Support
'INVESTING IN EUROPE'S FUTURE'
Svyrydenko said the first €3.2-billion-euro ($3.63 billion)tranche of a €90-billion EU loan would be announced. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the cash was being transferred to Kyiv on Thursday.
Ukraine has said it will use the loan for defence and security, energy resilience and covering its budget deficit.
Von der Leyen said a promised investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine, backed by the EU, France, Germany and Poland, was also "ready to go" and could mobilise around €500 million this year.
"The message is simple that we are sending to investors," she said. "When you invest in Ukraine, you're not only investing in Ukraine's future, but you are investing in Europe's future."
Reconstruction Costs and Challenges
The recovery forum is the main annual international event dedicated to Ukraine's reconstruction following the devastation caused by Russian attacks, including on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Rebuilding Ukraine's economy will cost an estimated $588 billion over the next decade, the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and the Ukrainian government said in February.
"Recovery is not waiting for the guns to stop. Recovery is happening now," United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Alexander De Croo told Reuters in an interview.
"I think more funding always helps, but the major impediment today is making it into bankable projects... This is hard work. This is making legislation," he added.
Historical Tensions Between Poland and Ukraine
Controversy Over the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
HISTORY'S SHADOW
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been trying to calm tensions between Kyiv and Warsaw after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy named an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
Some Ukrainians regard the UPA as heroes for the resistance they mounted against the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and as symbols of Kyiv's struggle for independence from Moscow.
But the UPA was also involved in the Volhynia massacres, a series of killings from 1943 to 1945 in which Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki, a political opponent of Tusk, stripped Zelenskiy of a top honour over the dispute.
Calls for Reconciliation
"Ukraine rightly wants to be part of a United Europe," Tusk said. "The condition for true, full unification has always been an understanding of one's own history and a genuine capacity and willingness for reconciliation."
Additional Information
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(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka and Emanuele Berro in Gdansk, Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Bart Meijer in Amsterdam, Friederike Heine in Berlin, writing by Olena Harmash and Alan Charlish, Editing by Louise Heavens and Timothy Heritage)
