Structural transformation of the industry of Ukraine under the influence of Russian military aggression

Abstract

Russia's full-scale military aggression has caused enormous damage to the industrial capacity of Ukraine, as the hostilities have mainly affected those regions where the manufacturing sector is most developed. The purpose of the article is to identify structural transformations in the industrial sector of Ukraine's economy caused by Russian armed aggression. Since 2014, the output structure of the Ukrainian processing industry has undergone drastic negative changes: the share of low-tech industries has increased, while the share of medium- and high-tech industries has decreased. The efficiency of the Ukrainian processing industry is significantly lower than in the EU countries: the share of gross value added in output in Ukraine in 2020 was 20%, while in Poland it was 27% and in Germany 35%. One of the key problems of the functioning of the industrial sector and the national economy, in general, is the high import dependence of medium- and high-tech industries (especially the machine-building industry), the share of imports in costs or intermediate consumption of which in 2020 averaged over 48%. The war affected the dynamics of industrial production in Ukraine - during 2022, the volume of sold industrial products decreased by 21.6%, in particular, the products of processing industries - by 31.5%. The largest drop (by 58%) was recorded in metallurgical production. At the same time, the volume of industrial products sold abroad decreased by 44.6%. The export orientation of the industrial sector of the economy, i.e. the share of products sold outside of Ukraine, decreased by 8.4 percentage points (or by 29.6%) over the period. The post-war recovery of industrial capacity should be based on innovation and long-term development prospects. Accordingly, the central place in the structure of the industrial sector of the national economy should be occupied by mechanical engineering and chemical and pharmaceutical industries. This involves the creation of enterprises of the highest level in terms of technologies, organization of production, quality of management, etc. It is also necessary to move to new forms of organization and location of enterprises, in particular, the formation of industrial clusters that will ensure competitive costs of products.