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Ukraine will need at least US$1.79 billion to restore its telecommunications sector to pre-war levels, a U.N. agency has revealed alleging Russia has “destroyed completely and seized” networks in parts of the country.
The long-anticipated and sensitive damage assessment report by the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was commissioned in April to assess the extent of destruction of Ukraine’s communication networks as a result of Russia’s invasion last February.The report, which covers the first six months of the war, found that there was considerable damage and destruction to communications infrastructure in more than 10 out of 24 regions of Ukraine.
“Since the beginning of military attacks, with the purpose of using the facilities in its interests and for its own needs, the aggressor either destroyed completely or seized the regular operation of public and private terrestrial telecommunication and critical infrastructure in the temporarily occupied and war-affected territories of Ukraine,” the report said.
It also alleges that Moscow unilaterally switched Ukrainian dialling codes, fixed by the U.N. agency, to Russian ones and that there had been 1,123 cyber attacks against Ukraine.
An official with the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva dismissed the report’s allegations, saying they were designed to divert attention from unspecified “atrocities” committed by Ukraine on Russian-occupied territory.
ITU was founded in 1865, and allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits and sets standards for artificial intelligence and other new technologies.
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