When President Volodymyr Zelensky announced to the Danish Parliament last March that Ukraine wanted the Nordic country to rebuild the war-torn southern Mykolaiv Oblast, it was the first the Danes had heard of it. Not only was the president’s plan to assign Ukrainian regions to allied countries for reconstruction unorthodox, but Mykolaiv Oblast alone is more than half the size of Denmark, is heavily damaged by the war, and located less than 70 kilometers from the front lines. Zelensky’s speech to the Danish Parliament on March 29, 2022, came mere hours after Russia launched an attack at the regional Mykolaiv government building, killing 37 people.