Thank you for visiting Ukraine and taking the opportunity to see all the horror and damage the war has brought. Just a few weeks ago, the World Bank published an assessment of the damage to Ukraine—it now exceeds $411 billion. That is huge. Of course, Ukraine will need help rebuilding. Russian frozen sovereign assets and the assets of Russian oligarchs need to be channelled to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine. Also, the private sector, with its technology and with its capacity, needs to help with the rebuilding of Ukraine.
We had our Prime Minister visit Canada two weeks ago, and we were talking with the private sector about involvement in the rebuilding. This rebuilding is already happening. Rebuilding happens a maximum two hours after a missile hits the power grids, for example, because we need to restore them. We have no time to wait until the war ends. We need to rebuild schools. We need to rebuild them so that the children can go underground when there are air raids and continue their classes. We need to rebuild schools, hospitals and all of the other infrastructure, including over 35,000 homes that were completely destroyed.
For the private sector to enter, war risk insurance is crucially important. We've started to work with institutions like the World Bank's MIGA, but also with the expert credit agencies throughout G7 countries and the world to find this instrument, to secure the so-called war risks for the private sector so that it can have more clarity and insurance about entering Ukraine.
Also, I would like to mention one example of how during wartime, the Canadian private sector is stepping into a strategic partnership with Ukraine. An agreement was signed, witnessed by our Prime Minister who was here in Canada, with one of the biggest Canadian companies that produces uranium. That uranium will be supplied to produce fuel and will replace Russian nuclear fuel in all of the nuclear power stations in Ukraine. This is an example of building a strategic partnership between our companies and others from the private sector. It was widely mentioned during the meeting with Prime Minister Shmyhal and the private sector that they want to see these supporting instruments in order to de-risk their activities in Ukraine.