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Hello and welcome to EU Watchdog Radio.

I'm Paul Crini from Counterbalance, a non-profit organisation holding public investment banks in Europe to account. The Russian invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond.

At the time of recording, over 6.5 million people had fled the country, with millions more displaced within its borders.

The damage done to Ukrainian cities has also been colossal.

In April, Ukrainian president Volodymy Zelensky said that over 95% of the city of Maripal had been destroyed.

After Kharkia was liberated from Russian occupation,

Mayor Ihor Tedikov said around one in four homes in the city had also been decimated.

Forts are now turning to the cost of rebuilding this damage. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelensky claimed over half a trillion dollars will be needed to reconstruct Ukraine.

European public finance institutions will no doubt play a crucial role in this rebuild,

with one key institution being the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, or EBRD for short.

The bank has been a key investor in the country in the past. It has invested over 16 billion euro in

Ukraine since it joined the bank in 1992. On this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, we will speak

with Fadanka Bakheva McGra, a campaigner at CEE Bankwatch Network.

Bankwatch is a network of organisations from across Central and Eastern Europe.

They campaign to prevent environmentally and socially harmful impacts of international development finance

and promote alternative solutions.

We discuss the EBRD's history in Ukraine. This includes problematic projects which the bank financed

before the war. We also talk about how the EBRD should approach the rebuilding of Ukraine once the conflict is over.

This includes how the bank's current relationship with Russia must change, how the bank should

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