Ukraine War Economy Tracker

The Economy Tracker provides regular updates on the state of Ukraine’s economy during the war, bringing together key indicators and charts in one place. Sections are updated on a rolling basis to reflect the latest data.

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After a 28.8% decline in 2022, Ukraine’s economy began to recover, although growth has gradually slowed. Following 5.5% growth in 2023, real GDP grew by 2.9% in 2024 and by 1.8% in 2025. Weaker economic performance largely reflected the impact of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure and other wartime challenges.

In Q1 2026, real GDP fell for the first time since 2023 — by 0.6% y-o-y or 0.7% q-o-q (seasonally adjusted). GDP declined due to the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on energy infrastructure.

In June, inflation slowed and prices even declined by 0.1% after the spring surge caused by the war in Iran. In annual terms, price growth eased from 8.2% in May to 7.2% in June. Ukraine entered the full-scale war with consumer inflation at 10% year-on-year.

Food prices fell by 0.8% month-on-month. In particular, prices declined in June for eggs (-27.8%), vegetables (-3.7%), sugar (-0.8%) and milk (-0.5%).

Fuel prices fell by 1.6% in June. However, fuel remains 33.4% more expensive than in June 2025.

According to the NBU’s forecast, inflation will accelerate again to 9.4% year-on-year by the end of 2026, but will then start to decline.

The NBU raised the key policy rate from 15% to 15.5% at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 30 July 2026. The NBU raised its key policy rate because prices are rising faster than expected. The central bank is ready to raise the rate further if needed to curb inflation.

In June 2026, Ukraine’s international reserves increased by 12.1% to $51.3bn.

Over the month, reserves received $11.3bn in international assistance: $6.8 bn from the EU and $4.5 bn through World Bank accounts. Another $4.4 bn from the EU, provided as part of the first defence tranche under the Ukraine Support Loan programme, was not formally included in international reserves due to its earmarked use.

Currency outflows were much lower than inflows. The NBU carried out FX interventions worth $5.1 bn to smooth fluctuations in the hryvnia exchange rate. Another $270 mln went towards servicing and repaying public debt in foreign currency, while $172 mln was paid to the IMF. The revaluation of financial instruments and other factors reduced reserves by a further $191mn.

Despite the NBU’s large FX interventions, substantial inflows from international partners fully offset currency outflows. The current level of reserves is sufficient to finance 5.2 months of future imports — well above the minimum recommended level of 3 months.

Since the second half of October 2025, the US dollar exchange rate — both the official NBU rate and the cash market rate — has been rising and has already approached UAH 45/$. This depreciation has been managed by the NBU, which continues to operate under a managed flexibility regime, intervening in the foreign exchange market to prevent excessive fluctuations. Sharp exchange rate movements remain unlikely given the adequate level of FX reserves, which enables the NBU to continue conducting such interventions.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, all domestic revenues of Ukraine’s state budget have gone to finance defence; these expenditures account for roughly half of the budget. Ukraine finances all civilian state budget expenditures with foreign financial assistance — in 2026, the need for such external financing is about $50 bn.

In 2026, Ukraine has already launched a new cooperation programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and received the first credit tranche of $1.5 bn. Ukraine also continues to receive funds under the ERA programme (financed from proceeds generated by frozen Russian assets) — $9.7 bn already in 2026.

In 2025, foreign aid covered 56% of Ukraine’s additional state budget needs, down from 73% in 2024. In 2025, the main source of external financing was the ERA programme — a mechanism for transferring proceeds from frozen Russian assets. In 2026, financing from the European Union under a large €90 bn loan will be crucial for Ukraine. The first tranches were disbursed in June.

Ukraine’s own state budget revenues rose by 28% y-o-y in June. The largest increases came from transfers from the NBU, which grew by 74% due to higher profits, and rent payments, which rose by 35% amid higher natural gas prices.

Ukraine’s import VAT revenues also increased by 30%, reflecting stronger imports: $49.3bn in H1 2026, compared with $38.3bn in H1 2025, an increase of 29%.

In H1 2026, Ukraine’s total state budget expenditure reached UAH 2.8tn, up 17% y-o-y. War-related spending amounted to UAH 1.8tn, or 64% of total expenditure: 51% was financed from Ukraine’s own resources and 13% through defence aid. A year earlier, the split was 45% and 16%. Ukraine’s own financing of the war is therefore rising much faster, up 33%, while defence aid declined by 6%.

Civilian expenditure still accounts for less than 40% of the budget. Social protection, the largest civilian spending category, increased by 10% y-o-y.

Ukraine’s labour market experiences all the challenges of a full-scale war. The economic shock of the beginning of the Russian invasion led to a drop in both demand and supply of labour. Businesses stopped hiring and people stopped applying for jobs. Later, demand for labour began to recover. The number of people looking for a new job soared in the summer of 2022 and exceeded the average for 2021. However, the trends diverged from there: the need for labour was recovering along with the economic recovery, while the activity of job seekers was declining, not least due to Ukrainians’ migration abroad and mobilisation into the Defence Forces.

In mid-January 2026, the number of new CVs rose sharply, surpassing pre-war levels for the first time since 2022. Meanwhile, the number of new vacancies has fluctuated at around 120–130% of the 2021 baseline. Importantly, this does not mean there are more vacancies than CVs. On average, there are about 2.5 new CVs for every new vacancy.

NB: We recalculated the indices, excluding data from the Jooble aggregator due to their significant difference from the data from work.ua and robota.ua.

The State Statistics Service of Ukraine stopped publishing unemployment data when the full-scale war started. The Info Sapiens research agency makes its own estimates of the unemployment rate. According to these estimates, Ukraine’s unemployment rate edged up to 14.0% in June 2026. The proxy indicator of poverty — the share of respondents who reported having to cut back on food spending — also increased, reaching 23.4% in June.

Given that neither the number of unemployed people nor the size of the working-age population is known with certainty, it is appropriate to analyse this unemployment estimate over time. We see that over the past few years Ukraine has experienced a decline in the unemployment rate, while the overall level of poverty has remained high.

In June 2026, the seasonally adjusted Business Activity Expectations Index (BAEI) edged down to 48.8 and remained close to the positive zone, though still below the neutral level. The original BAEI data also declined slightly but remained in positive territory. Seasonally adjusted data help reveal the underlying trends.

According to the NBU, business sentiment was primarily weighed down by the continued destruction of production capacities.

Changes in business expectations are an important subjective indicator of the economic situation, signalling a gradual recovery or deterioration in business activity.

The Info Sapiens Consumer Sentiment Index stood at 76.9 points in April 2026, improving compared with January (73.5). An index reading below 100 means that negative consumer sentiment prevails among the population. The Consumer Sentiment Index consists of the Index of Economic Expectations (88.3 in April) and the Current Situation Index (59.9). Consumer sentiment improved in the spring, as it usually does. However, in April 2026 it remained weaker than in the same month of previous years.

Here we do not apply seasonal adjustment because, for consumer expectations, there are not enough observations, and the fluctuations are mostly unsystematic and not tied to the month of the year. This contrasts with businesses, whose expectations are shaped by more fundamental seasonal patterns in consumption, project cycles, agriculture, and so on.

Unfortunately, as of January 2026, Info Sapiens has discontinued its monthly consumer sentiment survey — updates will now be published on a quarterly basis.

In June 2026, Ukraine continued to increase electricity exports, which rose by more than 50% compared with May to 154.5 GWh. The growth was driven by the seasonal increase in solar generation and lower domestic demand. Hungary remained the largest importer of Ukrainian electricity, purchasing around 85 GWh, followed by Moldova and Romania at 47 GWh and 20 GWh, respectively.

Despite the increase in exports, imports still exceeded them by almost two times: Ukraine remains a net electricity importer. However, the import-to-export ratio is gradually narrowing — from 4.2 in May to 1.9 in June. Ukraine has to import large volumes of electricity primarily because of the consequences of Russian attacks.

Export volumes could have been significantly higher if not for the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — the EU’s carbon levy on imports of carbon-intensive goods, which entered into full force on 1 January 2026. According to Forbes Ukraine, Ukrainian electricity exporters lost around $26 million in revenue in the first quarter due to CBAM.

At the end of June, forced power outages returned in Ukraine for the first time since mid-April. According to Ukrenergo, the reason was an abnormal heatwave that affected all regions of the country and led to widespread and prolonged use of air conditioners. The situation was further complicated by the consequences of Russian attacks, scheduled summer maintenance at generation facilities, including nuclear power plants, and record heat in neighbouring European countries, which limited electricity imports.

On 1 May, price caps were raised to UAH 15,000/MWh, which partly restored access to imports during deficit hours. Despite this, imports fell to 295 GWh in June, down from 397 GWh in May, due to lower electricity demand and higher solar generation. The largest suppliers were Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, at 125 GWh, 74 GWh and 69 GWh, respectively. Poland and Moldova supplied 26 GWh and 0.7 GWh, respectively. Price caps should be fully abolished, but even raising them allows the market to respond more flexibly to shortages. Ukraine pays the market price for imported electricity — it is not aid.

Prices on the day-ahead market (DAM) increased slightly in June — to UAH 5.7/kWh, up from UAH 5.2/kWh in May. The increase reflects a capacity shortage in the power system, aggravated by the consequences of Russian attacks and peak loads on hot days.

In June, Ukraine’s harvested crop volumes were 20% higher, according to the Ministry of Economy, amid better yields and an earlier start to the harvest. In July, the USDA raised its forecast for Ukraine’s 2026 wheat harvest by 0.5 mt to 24 mt, with exports projected at 14 mt. The Ukrainian government expects the total grain and oilseed harvest to reach 81–83 mt, broadly in line with 2025.

In H1 2026, Ukrainian ports handled 42.4 mt of cargo, while agrifood cargo volumes rose by 20% y-o-y. Ukrzaliznytsia increased freight tariffs by 30% from 1 August due to lower freight volumes, infrastructure losses and high operating costs.

The export capacity of Ukraine’s Greater Odesa ports fell by 30% amid intensified Russian attacks on grain storage facilities, logistics infrastructure and vessels. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, only 1 mt of cargo can be redirected to the Danube ports.

In June, Ukraine’s metallurgical output increased by 1–11% m-o-m. However, production in the sector fell by 2–6% y-o-y in Q2. Under the EU’s new quotas, Ukraine is allowed to export only 1.05 mt of metal products annually, 60% less than in 2025.

Household deposits continued to grow after a slight decline in March. Demand deposits in both hryvnia and foreign currency remain at elevated levels — more than 200% of their nominal 2021 value — indicating strong demand for liquidity.

Lending in Ukraine is growing rapidly and confidently. Credit growth is driven both by strong business demand and by competition among banks, which has led them to ease lending conditions. Consumer lending is also expanding quickly.

However, note that while deposits have already reached 200% of their 2021 nominal level, loans have not. A gap between deposits and lending remains. Banks still find it attractive to place funds in NBU deposit certificates.

We updated the corporate hryvnia loans index to reflect PrivatBank’s write-off of NPLs from Kolomoisky’s era.

According to preliminary NBU data, in May 2026 the balance of goods and services was negative, at -$5.4 bn. In May, Ukraine imported a total of $10.3 bn. Of this, goods imports accounted for $8.2 bn and services imports for $2.1 bn. Exports reached $4.9 bn, including $3.5 bn in goods exports and $1.4 bn in services exports.

The comments and data in this Tracker have been adapted for an international audience with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

We use ChatGPT while working on this page to help edit and translate texts. The author, economist Maksym Samoiliuk, is responsible for the quality of the final product.