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Restoration of part of Donbass controlled by Kiev to cost $2 bln

The first and foremost is restoration of the structure of freshwater and electricity supplies, gas distribution pipelines, and housing

KIEV, October 14. /TASS/. Restoration and rehabilitation of the areas of Ukraine's much troubled Donetsk region that are controlled by the Kiev government will cost $2 billion as a minimum, Finance Minister Alexander Shlapak said on Monday.

“Unfortunately, there are two Donbasses now and if you take the territories controlled by Ukraine, preliminary assessments put the cost of their restoration at $2 billion,” Ukrinform news agency quoted him.

Shlapak said an international donor conference would be convened in December for the purpose of raising funds for restoration of Donbass.

The case in hand, first and foremost, was restoration of the structure of freshwater and electricity supplies, gas distribution pipelines, and housing.

When a reporter asked him in what form the Ukrainian government hoped to receive financing for the restoration of Donbass, Shlapak said he expected loans and grants, among other things.

“If the loans are given to us in the same format as we get them from the international financial institutes - for periods of up to ten years at no more than 2% then we can afford it,” he said.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said the European Union would send a special mission to Ukraine to assess the damage sustained by Donbass in the course of the ‘antiterrorist operation’ conducted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Yatsenyuk confessed that the damage was measures in billions of dollars.