Post-War Urban Recovery in Ukraine
by Russell W. Glenn
Combat in Ukraine attracts world attention as does a flame a moth. Ongoing fighting merits awareness, but with it comes the danger that only belatedly do concerns turn to recovery operations. Any delay in that regard is unfortunate; history informs us that recovery planning and—to the extent possible its initiation—is best fast-tracked with the disaster causing damage. The past provides plentiful lessons regarding how to approach this recovery. The challenges following hostilities will differ in character from those of war but be no less daunting. It is an unfortunate truth that destruction proves far cheaper its mending.
Ukraine is not waiting for war’s end to address this mending. Nor are those determined to assist in that recovery. Individual cities, countries, the European Union, others from the private sector, and many more are already working with Kyiv to not only repair but begin national healing. Related challenges will be—already are—complex, costly, Medusa-headed…but not without historical precedence. There are the inevitable tensions between those desiring substantial changes from pre-war cityscapes while others argue for restoration of what once was. Frictions of another sort already exist between those sympathetic to Russia even in the aftermath of its repeated incursions and others not. To these we can add the pragmatic problems of Ukraine’s millions displaced internally and internationally, the economic punishment suffered by the country’s east, and Russia’s haphazard mining of cities and farmlands rendering buildings unlivable and land unfarmable.
And there are the additional issues of how best to manage international assistance, address rising medical demands in light of war’s physical and emotional injuries, and justly deal with the specter of collaborating with the enemy, all while keeping the serpent of corruption at bay. Addressed here succinctly, these and more receive attention in Dr. Glenn’s book forthcoming from KeyPoint Press: Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine’s Cities Tell Us about Recovery from War.
Russell W. Glenn is author of Chapter 14, “Creating Light at Tunnel’s End: Ukraine’s Post-war Urban Recovery,.” This chapter originally appeared in Journal of Strategic Security 16, no. 4 (2023): 1-14, https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol16/iss4/1/.
