The EU has begun debating how to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine

the Azovstal factory in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol was one of the biggest steel plants in Europe, 11 square kilometres of blast furnaces and liquid metal. Its 11,000 workers poured more than 4m tonnes of steel a year. On February 24th the war began, and three months later Azovstal lay in ruins. Russia has reduced most of Mariupol, and other towns in eastern Ukraine, to burnt-out husks. Russian missiles and artillery have smashed railway stations, ports and telecoms towers, hit more than 1,000 schools and left roads and wheat fields pocked with craters. The physical damage came to $104bn at the end of May, according to the Kyiv School of Economics and the economy will shrink by up to 50% this year. Ukraine’s allies have promised cash to keep the country running during the war, and to rebuild it afterwards “to help a new Ukraine rise from the ashes of war”, says Paolo Gentiloni, the ’s economy commissioner. An accurate estimate of the total cost is impossible, but guesses are in the range of $200bn-500bn and rising. One question is where to get the money. Another is how to organise the aid without running foul of institutional rules or political sensitivities. Finally, there is the question of whether Ukraine can handle the cash.