“The war is having a devastating impact on human life and causing economic destruction in both countries, and will lead to significant economic losses in the Europe and Central Asia region and the rest of the world,” the report said.īelarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan also are forecast to slide into recession this year, while economic growth projections have been cut for the region’s other economies because of the war’s ripple effects. The war has cut off access to the Black Sea, a key route for exports, including 90% of Ukraine’s grain shipments, it said. Ukraine plays a major role as a global supplier of agricultural exports like wheat but that’s in question now because planting and harvesting have been disrupted by the war, the report said. The report said economic activity is impossible in “large swaths of areas” in Ukraine because infrastructure like roads, bridges, ports and train tracks have been destroyed. “The Russian invasion is delivering a massive blow to Ukraine’s economy and it has inflicted enormous damage to infrastructure.” “The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis unleashed by the war is staggering,” said Anna Bjerde, the World Bank’s vice president for the Europe and Central Asia region.
Besides Ukraine, it focuses on central and Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics, the Balkan countries and Turkey. The war is set to inflict twice the amount of economic damage across Europe and Central Asia that the COVID-19 pandemic did, the Washington-based lender said in its “War in the Region” economic report. Unprecedented financial and export sanctions imposed by Western allies in response to the war, meanwhile, are plunging Russia into a deep recession, lopping off more than a tenth of its economic growth, the World Bank said in a report Sunday. LONDON - The World Bank says Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 45.1% this year because of Russia’s invasion, which has shut down half of the country’s businesses, choked off imports and exports, and damaged a vast amount of critical infrastructure.