Ukraine has a month to avoid default
Lending to a borrower at war entails an additional gamble: that it will win
War is still exacting a heavy toll on Ukraine’s economy. The country’s GDP is a quarter smaller than on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, last year the central bank tore through foreign reserves and Russia’s attacks on critical infrastructure have hurt growth forecasts. “Strong armies”, warned Sergii Marchenko, Ukraine’s finance minister, on June 17th, “must be underpinned by strong economies.”
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “In the wars”
Finance & economics July 6th 2024
From the July 6th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Could war in the Gulf push oil to $100 a barrel?
Missiles are flying over a region that supplies a third of the world’s crude
How bond investors soured on France
They now regard the euro zone’s second-largest economy as riskier than Spain
Can Andrea Orcel, Europe’s star banker, create a super-bank?
An interview with the boss of UniCredit
Why economic warfare nearly always misses its target
There is no such thing as a strategic commodity
A tonne of public debt is never made public
New research suggests governments routinely hide their borrowing
Xi Jinping’s belated stimulus has reset the mood in Chinese markets
But can the buying frenzy last?