Ukraine’s poverty rate has almost doubled since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, reaching 37%. The figure was shared by Danilo Hetmantsev, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s finance committee, in an interview with Novyny.LIVE, where he stressed that the main driver behind this sharp increase is the war and its impact on the economy.
According to Hetmantsev, nearly all economic processes in the country are currently “negative,” shaped by ongoing fighting, uncertainty and bleak expectations for the future. However, he believes the situation will shift once the war is over.
“Peace brings what’s known as ‘peace dividends’ for every country. This is confirmed by economic history — when fighting ends, people tend to grow wealthier and poverty decreases. We saw this in our own statistics: after poverty rose sharply in 2014, it gradually declined until 2022,” Hetmantsev explained.
He argued that waiting for peace alone is not enough and that Ukraine should already be discussing adjustments to the minimum subsistence level to help people’s living standards recover when hostilities finally end.