As well as fighting Russia, Ukrainians are battling corruption at home

As the UK is set to hold a conference on how to rebuild postwar Ukraine, many worry what will happen to funds sent through a system where money disappears

If a fire is raging in a house, discussion of the colour of the replacement carpets is not normally the first priority, so to convene a Ukraine reconstruction conference in the midst of Kyiv’s counteroffensive may seem premature, and even tempting fate. The EU staged a large number of Syria reconstruction conferences premised on the defeat of Bashar al-Assad and look how that turned out.

The UK’s two-day conference starting on 21 June is at least the sixth since Russia’s full-scale invasion. The first was held on 4 July 2022 in Lugano, Switzerland. Germany, holding the rotating chair of the G7, held an event in Berlin on 24 October, Paris got in on the act on 13 December, Warsaw on 13 February and the EU Committee of the Regions held an event just last month, on 25 May.