Russia’s invasion has devastated and reshaped Ukraine, and its impact has also rippled out far beyond both countries’ borders, affecting millions worldwide by sending food and fuel prices soaring and driving up the cost of living, the United Nations reported on Wednesday.
The U.N. policy brief warns that no corner of the globe will escape unscathed, and it outlines how the war has “exacerbated a global cost-of-living crisis unseen in at least a generation.”
“Three months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we face a new reality,” Secretary General António Guterres said, announcing the report’s findings. “For those on the ground, every day brings new bloodshed and suffering. And for people around the world, the war, together with the other crises, is threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake.”
It’s the latest dejected but dire international assessment of the state of the world more than 100 days into the conflict, coming soon after the World Bank projected years of weak, potentially destabilizing growth for the global economy and the United Nations forecast multiple incoming food crises.
Guterres called for the flow of food and grain from Ukraine and Russia, stalled during the fighting, to resume immediately. Such a move is “essential for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries,” he said. Guterres also argued for increased economic support to low-income nations, urging global financial institutions to allow governments the flexibility to “borrow the money they need to keep their economies afloat.”
“We must act now,” Guterres said.
