Against the backdrop of this year’s widespread destruction, Kyiv still cannot finish restoring buildings damaged back in 2024

Kyiv, which in recent months has regularly suffered from intense Russian shelling, still cannot complete the reconstruction of apartment buildings that were damaged back in 2024, when the intensity of enemy attacks was significantly lower. Completion dates for the projects are constantly being postponed, and city authorities explain this by mobilization of construction workers and do not consider the delays to be significant. Meanwhile, residents of the affected buildings have to “force” the next steps in the recovery process. This is reported in a Bihus.Info segment.

On 1 June the mayor of the city, Vitali Klitschko, stated that Kyiv had restored 30 significantly damaged buildings out of 71. Overall, since the start of the full-scale invasion, 3 578 buildings have sustained damage of varying degrees. It should be understood that these figures change regularly, since the Russians often strike the capital’s apartment buildings specifically.

Despite this, the city, for example, is still carrying out restoration work on the building on Salsky Street, 19. A Russian missile hit it on 8 July 2024. Two tenders were held for the major repairs of that building totaling 124 million hryvnias, but it is still unknown whether that sum will be final, since the work is not yet finished. The handover dates for the building have already been postponed several times. A similar situation exists with the building on Mokra Street, which was damaged back at the beginning of 2024-th.

There are also delays in responding to recent shelling. A missile struck the building on Zoolohichna 6 in May 2026. The attack destroyed entryways and shattered the roof. Residents told journalists that the municipal utility “Management Company of Shevchenkivskyi District of Kyiv” only partially covered the roof with plastic sheeting, which stopped protecting against rain after bad weather. Resident Liliia Velychko said that municipal workers did not respond to residents’ complaints: “They brought a couple of pieces of plastic, covered part of it a little. And they answered that they don’t have any more tarpaulin. We had to collect money from pensioners and people with disabilities to at least cover it with a tarp ourselves. We hired people at our own risk to cover the roof, because we were tired of bailing out water.” Interestingly, after Bihus.Info sent a series of inquiries to the Kyiv City State Administration and the municipal utility, repair work on the roof of the building on Zoolohichna did indeed begin.

Responsibility for restoring some of Kyiv’s heavily damaged buildings lies with the Department of Construction and Housing Provision of the Kyiv City State Administration, in particular the municipal enterprise “Zhytloinvestbud-UKB.” This municipal enterprise orders expert assessments, detailed inspections of the damaged building, the repair project, and selects at tender the company that will carry out the major repairs. Thus the lion’s share of the restoration funds is concentrated in this enterprise. The head of the enterprise, Oleksandr Akimenko, says the city does not lack money and that reconstruction is a priority for the city. However, according to the director, the pace of major repairs is greatly affected by the mobilization of construction workers from contracting companies. According to Akimenko, just for doing the “paperwork” the municipal enterprise is currently allocating as much as 9 months. What will happen to the city’s housing stock under these conditions if the current pace of destruction continues is unknown.

Recall that Bihus.Info has been tracking the reconstruction processes since 2023. Journalists have published a number of investigations, including on corruption stories during the restoration of Kyiv region after deoccupation and the rebuilding of a school in frontline Kherson region.