Overview: World Bank expects 45 percent contraction in Ukraine and Austrian chancellor visits Putin
These are the main developments from Sunday evening and the night from Sunday to Monday:
- The World Bank expects that the economy of Ukraine this year will shrink by 45 percent because of the Russian invasion. Before the start of the war, the World Bank had forecast a growth of 3 percent. The actual contraction will depend mainly on the “duration and intensity” of the war. “The scale of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war is shocking,” said Anne Bjerde, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia region. “The Russian invasion is a huge blow to the Ukrainian economy and has caused massive damage to infrastructure.” For Russia, the World Bank expects a contraction of 11.2% this year.
- The Chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, is going to Moscow this Monday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is the first European leader to meet Putin physically since the start of the war. With his visit, Nehammer wants to encourage a “dialogue” between Russia and Ukraine, according to his spokesman. He was in Kiev on Saturday for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- According to the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadirov not only is a Russian offensive against the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol planned, but there are also coming new attacks on Kiev and other cities, Reuters reported. “We will completely liberate Luhansk and Donetsk first…then we will take Kiev and all the other cities,” Kadirov said in a video distributed via Telegram. He is considered an important ally of Vladimir Putin and claims that Chechen fighters are currently also active in Ukraine to assist the Russians.