Structural and Spatial Imbalances of the Ukrainian Economy in the Conditions of War: A Statistical Assessment

The Russian military invasion strokes a heavy blow on the social and economic development of Ukraine, caused a massive loss of human capital, production and non-production assets, disruptions of logistics and economic ties. These devastations and losses resulted in a dramatic structural and spatial transformation of the national economy. The article’s objective is to provide a statistical assessment of the main trends in the economic development of Ukrainian regions in the context of large-scale war. Structural changes in the national economy over 2021–2023 were revealed through an analysis of the gross domestic product indicator in Ukraine. An analysis of dynamic series on the total building area (by residential and non-residential buildings), by construction-in-process and commissioned areas, by Ukrainian region, revealed that the vectors of new constructions shifted toward western (Transcarpathia, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Chernivtsi) and central (Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr) oblasts. The by-industry dynamics of recovery in the Ukrainian manufacturing was analyzed. The challenged faced by metallurgical plants were highlighted. A positive transformation of the national industrial sector toward the increasing share of mechanical engineering in the total industrial output was highlighted. The trends in agricultural sector were shown by analyzing index of agricultural output in plant-growing and animal husbandry. A structural and dynamic assessment of the cultivated areas for agricultural plants in the regions over the time of the great war was made. The shrinking output in the Ukrainian plant-growing was revealed to have a strong correlation with the loss of cultivated areas. A by-region comparison of exports revealed that the domestic export capacities were gradually moving to western and central oblasts of Ukraine. It was found that the Ukrainian exports became increasingly dominated by low-tech goods, with the growing share of high-tech goods in the imports. The latter trend can be explained by the growing needs of the domestic defense industry complex in the product range of the mechanical engineering.