Reconstructing the Ruins: Post-War Urbanism and the Future of Ukrainian Cities

From the industrial skeleton of Mariupol to the cratered courtyards of Bakhmut and the scorched skyline of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s cities have borne the brunt of a war not only fought with bombs and drones, but waged against the very concept of urban life. Russia’s campaign has targeted infrastructure, housing, transport hubs, schools, hospitals, and cultural landmarks with such deliberate precision that reconstruction must now be thought of not simply as rebuilding, but as reimagining. The question facing Ukraine is not how to recreate what has been destroyed — but how to create something new from the ashes: cities that are safer, greener, more resilient, and more inclusive than before.

Here we explore the challenges and opportunities of post-war urbanism in Ukraine, considering the physical destruction wrought by war, the civic and social dislocation of displacement, and the planning debates already underway — both within Ukraine and among her international partners — about how a post-war urban future should look, feel, and function.

Cities Under Siege: The Urban Toll of Total War

Since February 2022, Ukraine’s cities have not merely suffered collateral damage — they have been systematically dismantled. Russian missile, artillery, and aerial attacks have laid waste to entire districts in urban centres across the east and south. Mariupol, once home to over 400,000 people, has been turned into a haunted shell of apartment blocks, mass graves, and destroyed civic space. Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Popasna, and Severodonetsk are largely uninhabitable. Kharkiv has lost whole neighbourhoods. Even Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro — though less physically damaged — have suffered recurring air strikes targeting infrastructure and energy grids.

This destruction has left over 1.5 million homes damaged or destroyed, according to government estimates, and displaced over 6 million Ukrainians internally, with millions more abroad. Schools, universities, health clinics, factories, water systems, sewage networks — all lie in varying states of ruin.

Urbanism in Ukraine has become a question not only of planning, but of survival. How do you restart public life in a city without running water? How do you educate children in a city with no schools? How do you offer hope in a cityscape of hollow towers and collapsed stairwells?

The Politics of Rubble: Reconstruction as Nation-Building

In the wake of such devastation, the reconstruction of Ukraine’s cities will be one of the largest civil infrastructure projects in Europe since the Second World War. It will also be politically charged. Each rebuilt bridge, park or municipal building is not just a piece of infrastructure — it is a statement of sovereignty, memory, and modern identity.

The Ukrainian government, through its Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, has begun preparing master plans for reconstruction. Local governments — particularly in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv — have also commissioned their own visions for recovery, often with support from European urbanists and architects.

But underlying these plans is a central tension: Who decides what a city should become? Should reconstruction aim to replicate pre-war urban forms? Or should it take this opportunity to radically reshape the post-Soviet urban fabric, long criticised for inefficiency, alienation and environmental degradation?

This tension extends to symbolic questions as well: Should damaged Soviet-era housing blocks be restored, replaced, or torn down? Should monuments destroyed by shelling be rebuilt or reinterpreted? How can cities honour wartime trauma without being defined by it?

Rethinking Form: From Soviet Mass Housing to Human-Scale Cities

Much of Ukraine’s urban landscape, especially in the east, is a legacy of Soviet-era planning: sprawling micro-raions (residential districts) characterised by concrete towers, poor insulation, inadequate public space, and car-centric infrastructure. While functional in their time, these zones became outdated, inefficient and unpopular in the decades after independence.

Reconstruction offers a unique opportunity to break with this model. Ukrainian and international planners now speak of “rebuilding for dignity” — envisioning cities that prioritise walkability, mixed-use development, green space, climate resilience and community cohesion.

In Kharkiv, for example, an international competition led by architect Norman Foster and Ukrainian urban design specialists is exploring how to rebuild bombed-out districts using modern, sustainable design principles. In Bucha and Irpin, municipalities are already piloting participatory design methods to ensure that new neighbourhoods reflect residents’ needs.

The shift is not merely aesthetic. A human-centred urban design — one that integrates green corridors, flood defences and decentralised public services — is essential in a country facing both war and the long-term threats of climate change.

Smart Cities for a Sovereign Future

Ukraine’s digital infrastructure has performed extraordinarily well under wartime conditions. The Diia app — through which citizens access identity documents, social services and even military registries — is emblematic of Ukraine’s commitment to e-governance. The reconstruction of cities offers an opportunity to extend this digital success into the physical environment.

“Smart cities” in Ukraine are likely to prioritise:

• Digital energy grids with real-time monitoring.

  
  

• Sensor-based public transport for efficiency and safety.

  
  

• Resilient communications networks, including secure underground fibre lines.

  
  

• Digital twin modelling to manage reconstruction and infrastructure stress-testing.

  
  

• Citizen engagement platforms for participatory budgeting and feedback.

However there is a risk that this vision could become technocratic or inequitable if not grounded in local needs. A truly smart city must serve all residents, not only those with smartphones and fast Wi-Fi.

Housing and Equity: Reconstruction Must Not Recreate Inequality

One of the greatest challenges ahead is the reconstruction of affordable and dignified housing. War has intensified pre-existing housing shortages, and many survivors now live in temporary shelters, overcrowded apartments or emergency modular homes.

Without careful planning, reconstruction could deepen inequality — favouring wealthier cities over poor ones, or offering sleek commercial towers where once there were communal housing blocks. Already, speculative developers circle ruined city centres, offering “quick-build” solutions that may be structurally safe but socially disastrous.

Ukraine has a chance to lead in public housing innovation: modular homes that grow over time, cooperative ownership models, state-subsidised green construction, and rental protections for vulnerable populations. International donors must resist the temptation to fund only photogenic landmarks and instead prioritise the humble but essential work of home-building.

Memory and Trauma in the Built Environment

Cities are not just machines for living — they are repositories of collective memory. The question of how to incorporate trauma into the rebuilt urban fabric will define the soul of post-war Ukrainian urbanism.

Should cities preserve ruins as war memorials? Should destroyed theatres and maternity hospitals be reconstructed as they were, or reimagined as public spaces for remembrance and reconciliation?

In places like Mariupol, which may take decades to reclaim and rebuild, these questions are not yet answerable. But Ukraine’s experience after the Maidan revolution — where public space became a centre for political mourning and civic solidarity — offers some precedent. Urban planning must now grapple with memorialisation not only through monuments, but through schools, libraries, transit hubs and gardens: spaces that speak softly of survival.

Cities as Instruments of Recovery and Resistance

Rebuilding Ukraine’s cities will require more than cranes and contracts. It will require vision, trust and a commitment to justice. Urban form is never neutral. Every street re-laid, every school re-opened, every shelter rebuilt is a political act — one that asserts the future of a sovereign, democratic Ukraine over the ruins of imperial violence.

The war has shattered cities. But it has also shattered illusions — about the permanence of bad (Soviet) design, the inevitability of neglect, and the impossibility of change. In their place lies a rare chance to build anew: not just to reconstruct what was lost, but to construct what was never fully realised.

In doing so, Ukraine will not only reclaim her cities from war. She may, in the process, offer the world a new model of post-war urban recovery: one that remembers the past, serves the present, and prepares — resolutely — for a future worth living in.