Ukraine needs “a strategic international support plan” similar to the historic Marshall Plan for rebuilding the country when the war ends, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday.

Speaking via video link at an international donors’ conference hosted by Poland and Sweden in Warsaw to raise funds for Ukraine, Zelenskyy noted that they will use the financial resources for both the society and the country's defense needs.

“It is money, technology, expertise and growth opportunities that are needed to return to a secure life, to modernization and to social development.

“It will be an investment in the stability of the whole of central and eastern Europe. So that the aggressor knows that it will not break the power of Europe and all free nations. And so that everything destroyed by the war is rebuilt at a high level,” he said

"We are already preparing an ambitious plan for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war, and we need a strategic international support plan that will be a modern version of the historic Marshall Plan.”

The Marshall Plan was a US-sponsored program designed to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European countries after World War II.

Stating that civil and responsible states should protect Ukraine's war-torn regions and economic sectors, Zelenskyy said that "such a protection project can constitute a historical example of interaction and partnership between free and democratic world states.”

Over €6 billion ($6.3 billion) was pledged Thursday for Ukraine at the donors’ conference.

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