Russia-Ukraine War

The United Nations (UN) estimated that a record number of people would need humanitarian assistance this year—that was without knowing that war was about to break out in the heart of Europe.From the tens of millions expected to be pushed into extreme poverty by food and energy price spikes, to the worst the refugee crisis the world has seen for 80 years and the millions of Ukranian civilians who (either now or in the near future) will require humanitarian assistant, the implications are grave and far reaching. 

As the war in Ukraine continues, CGD experts are exploring how the world’s poorest people are going to be impacted by this conflict, and considering how policymakers should respond.

More from the Series

Blog Post
Ukraine Shows How US Foreign Aid Can Deliver
Charles Kenny
July 24, 2024
The work of USAID in Ukraine is also a sign of what foreign aid can accomplish when it uses the right tools to deliver. It is time that far more overseas assistance was allocated through recipient governments rather than Beltway contractors.
Stacks of USAID supplies in a warehouse
WORKING PAPERS
Macroeconomic Impact of the War in Ukraine and of High Commodity Prices across Countries
Markus Haacker
August 29, 2023
The war in Ukraine was associated with large changes in the prices of key food and fuel commodities in 2022 which produced macroeconomic gains for exporters and losses as import costs increased. Across 49 countries benefitting, these gains averaged about 8 percent of GDP and reach up to 36 percent o...
Blog Post
All Eyes On The UK—Will the New PM Back Her Vision, or Ask Developing Countries to Fund the UK’s Ukrainian Refugees?
Ian Mitchell
September 13, 2022
With all eyes on the UK, new Prime Minister Liz Truss faces a decision which will have a significant bearing on the UK’s standing in the world: Will her government provide additional funding to support Ukrainian refugees so that other development support is not reduced?
Blog Post
The Unaddressed Health Security Risks in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Gemma Bowsher et al.
August 25, 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a historic lacuna for European security. A neglected dimension of the wider security conversation is the war’s consequences for global health security. We map these emerging threats from food insecurity to radiation risks, and call for the immediate develo...
Eastern Ukraine: How a nurse on a bicycle cares for the most vulnerable
Blog Post
The IMF and Ukraine: More Transparency Would Help
Lucas Sala
and
Mark Plant
August 03, 2022
Ukraine’s dire financing situation is front and center in the debate over how the world will weather the war being waged by Russia. The IMF will play an important role in extending credit to Ukraine directly, but the institution is also being used a conduit for other countries’ assistance. In this b...
Aerial view of Ukraine
Blog Post
Ukraine Needs the Millennium Challenge Corporation. The MCC Can’t Help.
Charles Kenny
June 30, 2022
The MCC is particular about which countries it supports. Among the requirements, Ukraine passes the agency’s (important and legitimate) hurdle that it only works in the world’s low- and lower-middle-income countries. It also passes a lot of other tests the MCC lays out for support, based on a scorec...
Ukraine is in the midst of an existential conflict with Russia, one which is having a terrible impact—most importantly on people, but also on publicly owned infrastructure. And while the US is being generous in military and general budget support (about $10 billion of the latter to date), there is only really one agency of the federal government that is still involved in financing public infrastructure: the Millennium Challenge Corporation. But the MCC is MIA in Ukraine, for a ridiculous reason.
Blog Post
How Ukraine Crowdsourced Space
Rose Croshier
May 10, 2022
Pretty much everyone following the war in Ukraine has seen satellite imagery of Russian convoys trundling across Ukraine, or read about Elon Musk’s delivery of 5,000+ Starlink satellite-internet receivers. News reports are backed up by a wealth of satellite data, which has short-circuited Russia’s a...