First regional recovery forum will be held in Zhytomyr region in September

Богдан Петришин

Ukraine will invite up to fifty foreign embassies to participate in the regional recovery forum, which will be held in September in the Zhytomyr region.

People's deputy, head of the Zhytomyr regional organization of the political party Servant of the People, Arsenii Pushkarenko, announced this.

"Using the example of cooperation between the Zhytomyr region and the government of Estonia in rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure, we want to show other countries how this process can take place and stimulate the governments of other states to cooperate with Ukraine's war-affected regions," Pushkarenko said.

He reminded that the Zhytomyr region restoration was taken under Estonia's patronage. So far, the Estonian government has considered the first 15 facilities to be built or renovated.

"The Estonian side has already held all tenders for constructing a new kindergarten in Ovruch and has allocated 2 million euros for this project. The next project will be the reconstruction of the bombed-out bridge in Malyn according to the 50×50 funding formula — Estonia will allocate part of the money, and the other part will be allocated from the state budget," the People's Deputy said.

Also, according to him, the governments of Estonia, Portugal, and Finland are considering the possibility of financing the restoration of the destroyed Lyceum No. 25 in the center of Zhytomyr.

Pushkarenko emphasized that three types of projects are currently being considered: restoration of destroyed objects, completion of those, building of which started before the war and brought to 40-50% readiness, and objects that were just planned to be built, but the war prevented them.

"We want to show other states that Estonia is already investing in reconstruction, not in theory, but in practice. And thus involve other countries in this process. Therefore, at the end of September, we are preparing a large recovery forum, to which we plan to invite representatives of at least 50 foreign embassies," Pushkarenko concluded.