Counting the costs of Russia’s war on Ukraine

Russia’s war on Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and spread economic strife across the world.

These are the main consequences of the war, now in its ninth month:

Death

The war has sown death on a level not seen in Europe since World War 2.

From February 24 to October 2, 6,114 civilians were reported killed and 9,132 injured, though the actual numbers are much higher, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said on October 3.

“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes,” said the commissioner.

Ukraine has not said how many of its soldiers were killed. Russian Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said on September 21 that 5,937 Russian soldiers were killed since the start of the war.

Both Ukraine and Russia say the other side has sustained devastatingly high casualties. Reuters was unable to verify battlefield claims from either side.

The top US general estimated on Wednesday that Russia and Ukraine had each seen more than 100,000 of their soldiers killed or wounded. “A lot of human suffering,” army general Mark Milley said at the Economic Club of New York.

Milley said the conflict turned anywhere from 15-million to 30-million Ukrainians into refugees, and probably killed about 40,000 Ukrainian civilians.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.

About 14,000 people were killed there from 2014 to the end of 2021, according to OHCHR, including 3,106 civilians.

Misery

Since February 24, a third of Ukrainians were forced from their homes, the largest current human displacement crisis in the world, the UN refugee agency has said. Ukraine has a population of more than 41-million.

There are more than 7.8-million refugees from Ukraine around Europe, with the most in Poland, Russia and Germany, according to the agency’s data.

Ukraine

Besides the human losses, Ukraine has lost control of about 22% of its land to Russia since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, according to Reuters calculations.

It lost a swathe of coastline, its economy was crippled and some cities were into wastelands by Russian shelling. Ukraine’s economy will contract 45% in 2022, the World Bank and IMF estimate.

The true dollar cost to Ukraine is unclear. It is unclear how much Ukraine has spent on fighting.

Russia

The war has been expensive for Russia too, though it does not disclose the costs, which are state secrets.

Besides the military costs, the West has tried to punish Moscow by imposing severe sanctions, the biggest shock to Russia’s economy since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

In October, Russia’s central bank improved its GDP forecast for 2022 to a contraction of 3%-3.5% from an expected 4%-6% drop  previously. In late April, it was expected GDP to shrink 8-10%.

The economy ministry sees a contraction of 2.9% this year and a 0.8% fall in 2023.

Still, the effect on Russia’s economy is severe — and not yet fully clear. It has been excluded from Western financial markets, most of its oligarchs are sanctioned, and it is experiencing problems sourcing items such as microchips.

Russia has defaulted on its foreign bonds for the first time since the calamitous months after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

The central bank has cautioned that the partial mobilisation could stoke longer-term inflation. The central bank tweaked its year-end inflation forecast to 12%-13% from 11%-13%.

Prices

The invasion and Western sanctions on Russia led to steep rises in the prices of fertiliser, wheat, metals and energy, feeding into both a brewing food crisis and an inflationary wave that is crashing through the global economy.

Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, wheat, nitrogen fertiliser and palladium. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, international oil prices spiked to their highest levels since the records of 2008.

Attempts to reduce reliance on Russian oil, gas and oil products — or even to cap their prices — worsened the most severe energy crunch since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s.

The war has cut global growth while an energy crisis in Europe could tip it into a deeper crisis, according to Goldman Sachs which expects global GDP growth to slow to 1.8% in 2023.

Western weapons

The US has provided more than $18.2bn in security assistance to Ukraine since February 24 including stinger anti-aircraft systems, Javelin anti-armour systems, 155mm Howitzers and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protective equipment.

Altogether €52bn in military, financial and humanitarian aid was pledged by October 3 to Ukraine by countries around the world, according to The Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Russia says the West’s supplies of advanced weapons to Ukraine are finding their way onto the black market and then into the hands of extremist and criminal groups in the Middle East, central Africa and Asia.

Reuters