The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24^th, 2022, and since then major cities have been attacked such as Berdyansk, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, and the capital Kyiv, making it the largest war in Europe since 1945.

Since February 2022 Ukrainian forces have lost many security tools, military weapons and systems. Aircraft, tanks, armored personnel carriers and vehicles, indirect fire systems, naval fleets were either destroyed, abandoned or captured.

This is the result of the Russian active military personnel being four times larger than Ukraine’s. Russia spends nearly 66 billion U.S. dollars, making it the 4^th largest military spending in the world, compared to Ukraine’s spending of 6 billion U.S. dollars. However, Ukraine received military help from Western countries, and the largest aid came from the United States.

Source(s):, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, NATO. The figures for NATO do not include Luxembourg and Iceland.

Assessing the damage caused by the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian GDP dropped by 35%. Since this invasion, the losses rose to 60% of annual economic output – the heavy infrastructure damages such as buildings, roads, businesses and factories, will be expensive to repair and rebuild.

According to Forbes, 105 200 cars, 43 700 agricultural machines, 764 kindergartens, 1991 shops, 634 cultural facilities, and 23000km of road and 33.7 million sq meters of residential area (140 000 residential buildings and 114 700 private homes) worth $47.7 bn in total have been hit. This has left 3.5 million people homeless. All these damages caused $108 Billion to Ukraine’s infrastructure.

Besides infrastructure damages, as of December 2022, 6.7 thousand deaths of civilians in Ukraine have been reported, according to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The war has led to a humanitarian crisis, resulting in thousands of Ukrainians flying out of their country to neighboring countries.

As of November 2022, 7.9 million Ukrainians have immigrated and the highest number of border crossings was registered in Poland, followed by Russia, Hungary, and Romania.

However, the international reaction and economic impact have also hit the war initiator country.

Sanctions have been imposed by Western countries on Russia. The restrictions targeted individuals affiliated with the government, financial sector, and exports of high-tech products to Russia, but also banned Russian airlines from European airspace, while Germany stopped the certification of the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, and further sanctions will take place from other countries.

Additionally, major companies have suspended operations in Russia, while India and China took a neutral stance in this war. Belarus, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria support the conflict and stand with Russia.

According to Statista, the value of the Russian ruble against the U.S. dollar and euro dropped to a historic low, following the invasion. However, the demand to pay for gas in the Russian currency and Central Bank interventions have strengthened the currency.

Many losses from the war are hard to quantify as there is a lot of propaganda and misleading information, however, according to the Kyiv School of Economics weekly, the damage inflicting Ukraine’s infrastructure costs $4.5bn (£3.6bn) as bombs ripped off thousands of public utilities, buildings, and miles of road. Therefore, if it continues at this rate, it is estimated that the cost of conflict could reach $600bn, which represents almost four times the nation’s GDP

0 comments

Leave a comment