Over the last two years, global economy – and the EU’s in particular – has been shaken by two “black swans” in a row: Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. After the impressive economic rebound in 2021, the conflict has already taken its economic toll: growth forecasts for 2022 and 2023 are heavily revised downwards, public debts are skyrocketing, and inflation is at 30-year high, and likely to keep rising.
On May 9, Russia has celebrated the Victory Day to commemorate the triumph of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany.
As Asia was divided in its condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rise of the price of commodities is having an uneven impact over the region.
The more advanced economies are facing challenges similar to those that Europe is experiencing, where inflation and energy demands are the primary concerns.
In contrast, emerging markets are more concerned for their national food security.
The breakout of the conflict in Ukraine and the following imposition of heavy Western sanctions on Russia are causing sharp price increases in food and energy commodities —of which both Ukraine and Russia represent key exporters — as well as disruptions to global supply chains, impacting the post-pandemic economic recovery.
The war in Ukraine is deeply impacting global food markets, disrupting supplies, and bringing prices up, especially, those of cereals and vegetable oil. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for a third of the world's wheat exports and are among the primary suppliers for most of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Concerns have emerged that food inflation could potentially result in the rise of popular protests and mobilizations.
The conflict in Ukraine weighs today on world food security, due to the significant role that Russia and Ukraine play in international agricultural markets. Today, a third of the world's wheat export,
80% of sunflower oil exports, and 19% of corn exports are disrupted by the paralysis of production and transport in the Black Sea basin.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has dramatically changed not only the life of Ukrainians and Russians, but of Europeans, too. Many things that seemed impossible just before February 24th, 2022 now look more than probable. Among them is Ukraine’s EU membership.
On March 11, two weeks after the creation of Ukraine’s International Legion, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he would approve the deployment of up to 16,000 Middle Eastern fighters to support Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has consolidated EU elite opinion along anti-Russia lines. The days when a plethora of European voices encouraged understanding and strategic empathy towards Russia’s declared security concerns are unlikely to return for the foreseeable future.
Following Russia’s declaration of war against Ukraine on February 24th, the universe wherein Turkey had imagined its role and place in the world in recent years dramatically changed. Said universe was premised on the assumption of a multipolar world order where Ankara could attain its interests through a geopolitical balancing act between different centres of power, not least between Russia and the West.