Posted on 22 February 2022
Today, Ukraine is the closest thing Europe has to a failed state.
War in Ukraine will not only create an energy crisis that impacts the most vulnerable countries (Russian accounts for about 40% of Europe’s energy supply), but it would guarantee Ukraine becomes a fragile state.
From 1990 to 2017, Ukraine’s gross domestic product per capita (in constant dollars) fell 20 percent. That’s the fifth worst in the world, above only the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Arab Emirates, Burundi and Yemen, reports The Washington Post.
An escalation of the crisis between Russia and Ukraine would not be limited to Europe alone but would have significant ripple effects in the Middle East and North Africa as well.
For an overview of how war in Ukraine would affect countries like Libya, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, see DW’s report here for German media.
2022 could be remembered, not for Covid, but for a geopolitical realignment, increased human suffering, economic shocks, and war. And as Covid has shown, there is never a global crisis where the poor come out better off.