Reports emerged earlier this week indicating that it would take around US$4.67 billion over 10 years to repair Ukraine’s telecoms network.
Stanislav Prybytko, the director-general of the Directorate for mobile broadband in Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, told Euronews Next in a series of estimates that Russia has destroyed over 4,300 mobile base stations and a quarter of the country’s internet networks since February 2022.
According to Kyivstar, investing in, repairing and upgrading Ukrainian telecoms infrastructure is a very significant effort, and one that is ongoing. The firm says it has invested around $355 million since the beginning of the war – much of which is focused on extensive repairs and upgrades to crucial infrastructure like fibre-optic cables and base stations.
Roughly 720 mobile and internet providers have suffered “substantial losses” during the course of the war, with around 100 of them at the brink of bankruptcy.
Since the early days of the war, Kyivstar says it has considered it a “duty to support the entire national infrastructure as the market leader in Ukraine”. As a result, the operator launched national raoming in collaboration with the government and its competitors, “leaving competition aside”.
Veon’s past investments and its commitment to invest $600 million into rebuilding Ukraine’s telecoms infrastructure comes from its own funds.
“With an emphasis on maintaining connectivity, we have kept network availability at or above 90% in the territories controlled by Ukraine on average since the beginning of the war – and this number is currently at 94%,” the spokesperson says.
Veon and Kyivstar have committed to invest $600 million over three years to support Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery. For this effort, the company has enlisted international partners, not only on the network side but also for IT operations through alliances with the likes of Microsoft, Cisco and Amazon.
Kyivstar says energy resilience is another area where it has been heavily investing into, having spent $25 million on this area in 2023.
“The essentiality of this investment was recently demonstrated as we went through another wave of horrendous attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure,” the spokesperson says.
The investments have so far focused on network resiliency, energy infrastructure and digital assets the country needs in order to make “the digital vision a reality”.
“We invested in the country’s largest digital healthcare platform Helsi in August 2022 in the middle of the war. We will continue with this investment strategy – putting our resources into digital projects that further Ukraine’s resilience.”
Kyivstar recently signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) that confirms its interest in procuring and deploying Rakuten Symphony’s Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) technology in its network. This confirms Kyivstar’s intent to use Rakuten’s Open RAN and 5G technologies to help rebuild Ukraine’s digital infrastructure.
Since then, Kyivstar has expanded 4G coverage in Ukraine by modernising around 4,000 4G base stations and installing nearly 1,000 new 4G sites in 2023.
The operator re-connected 190 communities to its 4G network in de-occupied territories and its 4G coverage in Ukraine continued to increase from 93.7% in 2022 to almost 95% in 2023. Kyivstar says it is determined to expand 4G coverage to remote rural areas with its “LTE everywhere” focus.
Veon says it is a firm believer in the role of communications as an “essential humanitarian service” and it has seen how telecommunications “becomes a lifeline at times of crisis”.
“Kyivstar has been at the forefront of keeping Ukraine connected over the past 26 months,” the company says.
And it aims to continue doing that by keeping the network up and running inside the country, expanding 4G coverage networks and investing in digital services like tele-health, remote learning and media streaming.
