Shedding light on the Russia-Ukraine War

Rounak Hande, Ayush Patnaik (), Ajay Shah and Susan Thomas ()
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Ayush Patnaik: xKDR Forum

No 40, Working Papers from xKDR

Abstract: With the Russia-Ukraine war evolving into a prolonged war of attrition, the functioning of the two economies has become central. A small but growing literature uses alternative data to measure economic activity, responding to the limitations of official statistics. In this paper, we use nighttime lights ("NTL") data to track economic changes in both countries. Ukraine's NTL has fallen by 50% compared to 2022 levels. In contrast, Russia's aggregate NTL showed virtually no change between 2022 and 2025. Within Russia, the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, which produces 90% of the country's gas, recorded substantial NTL growth despite reports of declining national gas production. We also identify growth reversals in regions hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border, likely reflecting the effects of standoff weapons. Similar reversals appear along Russia's Western European border but not along other international frontiers, suggesting uneven enforcement of sanctions. Over the war years, Ukraine's economic activity has shifted westward, while Russia's has moved eastward.

JEL-codes: C80 F51 P25 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2025-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis and nep-ene
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https://papers.xkdr.org/papers/2025Handeetal_russiaNtl.pdf First version, 2025 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anf:wpaper:40

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