In Ukraine, living as normal is an act of defiance

Over the summer, away from the front lines, life had begun to return to normal. The mayor of Kyiv’s office has estimated from mobile-phone traffic that the population has fallen from a pre-war 3.7m to 3m, of whom roughly 400,000 were displaced from other areas. 

“In September, in general we had a rather positive picture,” says Hlib Vyshlinsky, head of the Centre of Economic Strategy. Some clothing retailers in Kyiv’s malls, he says, even reported sales higher than in September last year, probably as a result of pent-up demand over the initial weeks of the war, when almost all shops were closed.

But times are now tough. According to figures released at the end of October, Ukraine’s economy is predicted to shrink by almost 32% this year. Inflation will accelerate to 30%, largely because war has fouled up logistics and the currency, the hryvnia, was devalued in the summer. Unemployment is probably between 20% and 30%, though government data collection is much less thorough these days and economic indices can be “philosophical”, says Mr Vyshlinsky.

After the first big missile strike targeting electrical infrastructure on October 10th, businesses began to adapt quickly.

Dentists schedule visits according to the ever-varying electricity timetable. Cafés that cannot use their electric espresso machines switch to filter coffee, made with water boiled on gas stoves. Business owners say they are stockpiling supplies in their offices: sleeping bags, pumps to keep waste systems going, food and petrol. During the pandemic people got used to having a “home office”. 

Mr Vyshlinsky jokes that now, when they commute to offices so they can work somewhere warm and electrified, they call it “office home”.

He reckons that power from his generator is about three times costlier than mains electricity. Only some businesses can afford that. Some boast of their generators to woo customers. Many IT workers are these days using co-working spaces which have invested in generators and tout for business on ads in bus stops.

The article was published in The Economist