This price tag is hard to fathom – and it is a floor, not a ceiling...

A World Bank report has estimated it will cost Ukraine $411bn over the next 10 years to recover and rebuild from Russia's war on the country, with the bill for cleaning up the rubble from devastated towns and cities standing at $5bn alone.

The report released on Wednesday said that estimates "should be considered as minimums as needs will continue to rise as long as the war continues".

Yep. "As long as the war continues." That number's not going down, it's going up. Probably way up.

As a matter of fact, it has already gone up:

Produced jointly by Ukraine's government, the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations, the $411bn assessment marked an increase from the $349bn estimated in a report released by the bank in September.

Among the line items on that price tag are "nearly 2 million homes damaged, more than one in five public health institutions damaged, 650 ambulances damaged or stolen and at least 9,655 civilians confirmed dead, including 461 children."

The report "calculates $135bn in direct damage to buildings and infrastructure so far, not counting the broader economic fallout from the more than year-long conflict."

An outsized price for a war that has already cost so much.