This is a topic I haven’t seen much about in the news. What is the state of Ukraine overall? Are there still any factories that are running? Are people in the western part of the country still going to work like normal? What about farmers planting crops rather than towing away Russian tanks? Flights going into airports in the western part of the country? Feel free to address any such matters about how day to day life looks like in Ukraine these days.
Here in Canada, there is a french TV program called “La Semaine Verte” that deals with agriculture. They did a recent documentary about the current status of farming in Ukraine.
They mentioned that the only work that gets done is milking the cows. They cannot send the milk to the factories, therefore most of it is given away.
The farmers were not expecting to be able to plants there crops this year, lack of supplies of seeds was one reason given. Also, many farmers have had there supply of diesel fuel taken by the Russians.
I came across some ebay listings from Ukraine and wondered the same thing.
This article indicates more optimism, though how realistic the Ukrainian ag ministry’s report is may be subject to interpretation:
https://www.agriculture.com/markets/newswire/ukraine-ups-2022-spring-sowing-area-forecast-ministry
There is still the question as to whether farmers will be able and permitted to export anything. That, along with export sanctions on Russian agricultural staples (assuming they are widely enforced) do not bode well for food security for 2022-2023, especially in the Middle East, North Africa, and developing nations which are heavily dependent upon Ukrainian and Russian grains.
Stranger
There have been intermittent efforts to use online sales sites to funnel money to Ukrainians. For example, Airbnb was letting you rent a room in Kyiv, with zero intent of actually staying there, as a way of effectively making a direct donation to the owner. There are numerous practical objections to this, of course, so I won’t comment on the wisdom or utility, but it was a thing people were doing. Without having seen these ebay listings, I would wonder whether this is more of the same: the buyer knows they’re buying “nothing” but the seller still collects. It could also be a scam, of course, someone in a totally different country trying to exploit the positive intentions of online do-gooders.
Thanks, I think I’ll steer clear.
I haven’t seen any reports of fighting in Western Ukraine. There were missile attacks against bases in Western Ukraine.
Otherwise I think there’s a large area that hasn’t seen warfare. The central heartland of Ukraine looks unaffected except for around Kyiv.
I don’t see any major cities in Western Ukraine except Lviv. It had missile attacks but no invasion.
Not of much use, but a couple of weekends I heard a bit on the radio (Planet Money) discussing how difficult it was for anyone in Ukraine just to get up every day and go to their job. Whether there was fighting in the immediate area, there were the tremendous flow of refugees westward, and the flow of attempted aide eastward. Both of those hugely interrupted with normal supply chain of both consumer and commercial goods.
Even if the lights were on and bombs weren’t falling, I’d imagine the level of stress would interfere with just about anyone’s ability/willingness to do their jobs.
The same bit was discussing the vast sums it would take to rebuild the infrastructure damaged in this attack. Truly daunting.
CNN reports that their economy will shrink by close to half this year.
Another significant issue in such situations is the loss of tax and other income, needed to fund ongoing government services. Just an incredible mess.
This I heard yesterday that Russia’s economy was expected to shrink 11%. Do we call that a win? 