Piles of corn and wheat are stuck in silos, as Russia’s invasion stifles critical exports. Metal-producing factories in Ukraine’s bombed-out east have ceased operating. And through nearly a year of war, over a third of Ukraine’s spending is being directed at beating back the enemy.
Despite major battlefield defeats in its invasion, the Kremlin’s relentless war effort has sown economic havoc atop a devastating humanitarian toll in Ukraine. The country’s economy shrank by 30.4 percent in 2022, its economy minister said Thursday, the largest decline since Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
“It’s easier to say what we lost” than what survives in Ukraine’s economy, said Hlib Vyshlinsky, the executive director of the Centre for Economic Strategy, a think tank in Kyiv.
Swaths of the country’s industry and infrastructure have been partially or fully destroyed, and may not be rebuilt. Many…
