WHEN THE war ended, the country resembled a wasteland. Almost all industrial structures had been flattened by air raids, infrastructure rendered unusable and large cities bombed out. Russian-led forces occupied the east, with millions fleeing their brutality. But West Germany’s economy recovered strongly after 1945, in what would soon be coined the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle).

Unlike Nazi Germany, Ukraine is not the aggressor, and may yet be victorious. Nonetheless, rebuilding will be a monumental task. Vladimir Putin’s war has so far claimed the lives of more than a thousand innocents and displaced millions; it has laid waste to houses and hospitals, bridges and ports. With no end to the hostilities in sight, more destruction will surely follow. Officials and economists are assessing the damage and, drawing on lessons from Germany and elsewhere, thinking about how to manage the eventual recovery.

Researchers from the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), a network of economists, put the total cost of rebuilding Ukraine in the region of €200bn-500bn ($220bn-540bn), roughly in line with the government’s own calculations. The way in which reconstruction happens, and the reforms that accompany it, will be just as important as the money spent. Done well, it could transform an economy that was once captured by oligarchic interests into something more open and dynamic.

Working out the hit to the Ukrainian economy from war is a difficult business. The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), a think-tank, reckons that the affected regions together make up about 29% of Ukrainian output. Electricity consumption, a proxy for activity, is down by around a third compared with a year ago. According to a survey by the central bank, 30% of firms around the country have stopped producing entirely and another 45% have reduced their output. The World Bank reckons that GDP will contract by 45% this year.

The government is trying to limit the damage where it can. Aid from the West, of around $7bn so far, has kept the public finances afloat. Farmers have been given 20bn hryvnia ($675m) so that they can continue to work their fields. Manufacturers can apply for help to relocate within Ukraine. With Russia blockading Ukraine’s main export route through the Black Sea, the government is working with the EU to make trading by land easier. It says that 80% of exports can still leave the country.

Even so, rebuilding war-torn regions will come with a hefty price-tag. Three main tasks lie ahead. One is clearing affected areas of landmines and other explosive debris. Although the full extent of contamination is far from clear, past experience gives a sense of the costs involved. Before this war Ukraine’s defence ministry put the cost of de-mining the Donbas region, which was invaded by Russia in 2014, at €650m. A de-mining effort on the scale of Iraq’s would cost roughly $1bn over a decade. The economic benefits of de-mining could be large. Mozambique was once heavily mined; a recent study estimates that the boost from de-mining it, which took well over two decades, came to about 20% of GDP.

Food and shelter will be a bigger expense. As a producer of grains and other agricultural commodities, Ukraine will probably be able to feed those in need. But the number of internally displaced people will continue to rise: at the time of writing it stood at 7.1m (a further 4.5m have fled the country). A tracker put together by the Kyiv School of Economics puts the value of destroyed housing at $29bn.

The final stage of rebuilding Ukraine will involve helping its economy flourish over the long term. In 2019 GDP per person, in real terms, was lower than it was at the fall of the Soviet Union—a damning testament to the long-standing lack of reform in the country. Many of Ukraine’s 1,500 functioning state-owned enterprises are lossmaking or barely profitable. Even before the war the IMF had urged the government to strengthen its anti-corruption framework and the rule of law.

Ukrainians’ political support for difficult reforms and their scrutiny of the post-war investment process will be crucial to make reconstruction a success. It might help that the government seems to see the process as an opportunity to make the economy more modern and competitive (and its industrial sector greener).

Reconstructions of the past, meanwhile, suggest that success could also come from closer integration with Europe, as happened with West Germany decades ago. Poland’s rapid growth is also often attributed to integration: in the 15 years after it joined the EU, its GDP per person increased by more than 80%.