Russian-Ukrainian Conflict Research Articles

Extreme risk contagions among fossil energy companies in China: Insights from a multilayer dynamic network analysis

Since the severity and frequency of extreme events have seriously threatened the stability of fossil energy markets, this paper conducts multilayer dynamic network analysis to demonstrate the evolution of the entire market structure during extreme events. Based on the data of 64 Chinese energy firms ranging from March 2018 to February 2023, this paper examines the sectoral discrepancies, and identifies systemically important companies during different crises. The results indicate that the risk transmission mechanisms among fossil energy markets are different induced by the two crises, namely the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Specifically, the COVID-19 has rendered greater influence on the oil and gas industry, while the Russia–Ukraine conflict has brought instability to the coal industry. Additionally, the heterogeneous effects of these events on individual energy firms are identified, and the results suggest that both small and large firms have played prominent roles in risk transmission.

Do OPEC+ policies help predict the oil price: A novel news-based predictor

The OPEC+, composed of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil-producing countries, exerts considerable influence over the global crude oil market. However, existing literature lacks a comprehensive application of this factor in oil price forecasting, primarily due to the complexity of measuring such policy evolutions. To address this research gap, this study develops a news-based OPEC+ policy index based on text mining methods for comprehensive analysis and forecasting of the oil price. First, by crawling and mining news headlines related to OPEC+ production decisions, a dynamic and high-frequency (weekly) OPEC+ policy index is established. Second, the linear and nonlinear relationship between the proposed OPEC+ policy index and the WTI crude oil futures price is thoroughly examined, assessing the potential predictive power of the index in explaining the movements of the crude oil price. Third, the forecasting efficacy of the constructed index on the oil price is rigorously evaluated across eight econometric and machine learning models. Key findings include: (1) The proposed weekly OPEC+ policy index demonstrates strong concordance with OPEC+ production change decisions, exhibiting notable peaks and troughs corresponding to OPEC+ Ministerial Meetings. (2) The relationship analysis demonstrates a strong linear and nonlinear association between the proposed OPEC+ policy index and the crude oil price. (3) For oil price prediction, models incorporating our proposed OPEC+ policy index demonstrate superior performance compared to models without this index. In particular, the index exhibits a more significant predictive effect within three-week forecasting horizons and performs exceptionally well during periods of pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In addition, the OPEC+ policy index also exhibits a significant predictive effect on the daily crude oil price and natural gas price, further confirming the robust and powerful forecasting capability of this index within the energy system.

Dynamic Monitoring of Ecological Quality in Eastern Ukraine Amidst the Russia‐Ukraine Conflict

To evaluate the spatiotemporal changes in the ecological environment of eastern Ukraine since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, this study used MODIS images from March to September 2020 and 2022 to calculate the Remote Sensing???Based Ecological Index. In 2022, compared with 2020, conflict zones exhibited reduced improvement and increased slight degradation, whereas nonconflict areas showed marginal enhancement. Through propensity score matching, the research confirmed the causal relationship between conflict and ecological trends. Pathway analysis revealed that the conflict contributed to 0.016 units increase in ecological quality while reducing the improvement rate by 0.042 units. This study provides empirical support for understanding the correlation between conflicts and specific environmental factors, offering technical references for ecological quality assessments in other conflict areas and future evaluations by the Ukrainian government.

Are sanctions costly for the energy industry of sanctioning states? A difference‐in‐differences approach to sanctions during the Russia–Ukraine war

AbstractThis study investigates the economic effects of states' implementing sanctions against Russia during the early stages of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2022. It specifically examines the effect of these sanctions on the stock returns of energy firms in a sample of 57 countries between August 2021 and October 2022, employing Difference‐in‐Differences imputation estimators to analyse heterogeneous event studies. The results show that sanctions initially lead to a short‐term increase in energy stock returns in the treatment countries, but this effect diminishes over time. The study also reveals that sanctions affect energy stock returns in NATO countries and flawed democracies significantly more than non‐NATO and fully democratic nations. The research includes robustness tests using stricter sanctions dates and an expanded sample, providing valuable insights for policymakers and investors navigating geopolitical events and their economic consequences.

The Effect Of Grain Prices On Food Inflation: A Forward-Looking Evaluation Among The Russia-Ukraine Conflict

The present study investigates how grain prices have been affecting food inflation in the wake of the recent pandemic and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. This study examines the effects on inflation of the limitations on exports of wheat, barley and corn products by Russia and Ukraine on the food inflation in Asia and North Africa by using cointegration test. Drawing upon monthly data from the 2000:01–2020:08 period, the study reveals that the food price index and grain prices in both Asia and North Africa are cointegrated in the long term, and that in both country groups wheat price increases in particular are triggering an increase in food prices.

Unmasking Media Narratives through Comparative Corpus Linguistic Analysis: A Study of Russia-Ukraine Conflict

In a world inundated with diverse media narratives, the Russia-Ukraine conflict emerges as a focal point of contention, revealing a complex interplay of linguistic strategies and discursive tactics. This study aims to unravel the intricacies of lexical choices, and discursive techniques employed by Sputnik, BBC, and Fox News in their coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict through corpus-assisted discourse studies techniques. Three corpora were created comprising 5,347 articles with 5,829,747 tokens, sampled from February 2022 to February 2023. Moreover, Sputnik’s diction strategically employs the phrase “military operation” while eschewing “war”, portraying the conflict as a defensive, legitimate endeavour, thus reinforcing a Russian geopolitical narrative that recasts Ukraine not as a victim but as an active participant with extremist factions. BBC, in contrast, adopts a pro-Western stance, framing Ukraine as a victim and Russia as an aggressor. Fox News calls Russia’s action as an invasion, and highlights the individual roles of political leaders in shaping the conflict. However, to address the limitations of this study, future studies can expand the scope, sources, languages, and genres for analysis. Furthermore, media consumers need to practice media literacy, cross-checking, and critical analysis in the era of overloaded information in order to form well-rounded opinions on complex geopolitical events.

Early Warning of Systemic Risk in Commodity Markets Based on Transfer Entropy Networks: Evidence from China.

This study aims to employ a causal network model based on transfer entropy for the early warning of systemic risk in commodity markets. We analyzed the dynamic causal relationships of prices for 25 commodities related to China (including futures and spot prices of energy, industrial metals, precious metals, and agricultural products), validating the effect of the causal network structure among commodity markets on systemic risk. Our research results identified commodities and categories playing significant roles, revealing that industry and precious metal markets possess stronger market information transmission capabilities, with price fluctuations impacting a broader range and with greater force on other commodity markets. Under the influence of different types of crisis events, such as economic crises and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the causal network structure among commodity markets exhibited distinct characteristics. The results of the effect of external shocks to the causal network structure of commodity markets on the entropy of systemic risk suggest that network structure indicators can warn of systemic risk. This article can assist investors and policymakers in managing systemic risk to avoid unexpected losses.

Dynamic Interlinkages between the Twitter Uncertainty Index and the Green Bond Market: Evidence from the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

AbstractThis study examines the time-varying connectedness between green bonds, Twitter-based uncertainty indices, and the S&P 500 Composite Index. We implement the time- and frequency-based connectedness methodologies and employ data between April 1, 2014 and April 21, 2023. Our findings suggest that (i) connectedness indices robustly capture prominent incidents during the episode; (ii) Twitter-based uncertainty indices are the highest transmitters of return shocks; (iii) net return spillovers transmitted by the S&P 500 Index sharply increased in 2020:1–2020:3, stemmed by the stock market crash in February 2020; and (iv) Twitter-based uncertainty indices showed significant net spillovers in July and November 2021.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and Implications for the Ukrainian Hryvnia and the Russian Ruble

This paper examines the interest rates, expected spot rates, and inflation rates of the Ukrainian Hryvnia (₴) to the Russian Ruble (₽). Our methodology analyzes international parity relationships, including Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and the International Fisher Effect (IFE). Focusing on the four years from two years before Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, i.e., February 2, 2020 to post-conflict up to December 2023, we hypothesize that the geopolitical tensions induced by the invasion have led to significant fluctuations and high volatility of these currencies. Additionally, we propose that the economic consequences of the invasion, such as disruptions to trade and food and supply shortages, may further affect these variables by increasing domestic and international money financing, therefore triggering higher inflation rates. Our analyses indicate that spot rates predicted using international parity relationships suggest the weakening of the Ukrainian Hryvnia after the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Our findings shed light on the magnitude and direction of currency movements, providing insights into the economic ramifications of the conflict. Specifically, we aim to elucidate how the invasion has impacted the region's exchange rates and economic stability.

Forecasting Crude Oil Volatility Using the Deep Learning‐Based Hybrid Models With Common Factors

ABSTRACTBased on empirical evidence of the Chinese commodity futures volatility dynamics, we propose a novel and flexible hybrid model, denoted as SAE‐HAR‐DL, which combines a supervised autoencoder (AE) with the deep learning‐based HAR model framework to capture essential common factor information and uses the reconstruction error of the AE component as a regularizer to enhance the generalization ability of the testing subsample. The empirical findings strongly support the effectiveness of this model in accurately forecasting crude oil futures volatility in the post‐COVID‐19 era, compared to the HAR, HAR‐PCA, and HAR‐DL models. Moreover, a robustness check also demonstrates the positive contribution of common factors to the volatility prediction of other commodity futures. Notably, we establish that these common factors act as effective regularizers, mitigating prediction losses within the HAR model in extreme risk events such as the COVID‐19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Comparative Analysis of Western Nations’ Actions in Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine Conflicts

This study explores and contrasts the responses of Western nations, specifically the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and the European Union (EU), to two pivotal conflicts: the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict and the 2023 Israel-Palestine conflict. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the analysis delves into the political, historical, and humanitarian dimensions of these responses, aiming to unravel the intricate factors that shape Western foreign policy. Through a qualitative content analysis of diplomatic statements, and policy actions, the research discerns the motivations guiding the approaches of these key Western players to these conflicts. By using a comparative in foreign policy framework, a pivotal finding emerges, emphasizing that diverse in responses are primarily driven by interstate perspectives, thereby revealing nuanced positions influenced by varying regional alliances within the US, the UK, and the EU.

Just War: Critical Discourse Analysis of US Presidential Speeches

War discourse plays an important role in the current political and media agenda. This CDA-based study aimed at identifying how the nature of conflict affects the discursive practices used for conflict representation. The concept of war discourse was thoroughly described in view of a just war tradition. Two contexts of extensively covered conflicts were chosen for investigation, namely the American-led intervention in the Syrian civil war and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. These military conflicts that seem different at first sight were mediated by direct and indirect US involvement. The research data were drawn from two US Presidents’ speeches and examined through CDA (van Dijk 1993, 2005), relating language use to its social, political and historical context. The analysis revealed a number of identical war discourse elements, their linguistic and extralinguistic (historical and cultural) peculiarities. These elements include a) the US conflict management strategies, b) negative other-presentation, c) positive self-presentation, d) a historical context of the US participation in similar conflicts, and e) a call to action. Combined together, these elements form a typical pattern, which can be used for both text analysis and text production.

Geopolitical shocks and commodity market dynamics: New evidence from the Russia-Ukraine conflict

We investigate the event-based geopolitical shocks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine on agricultural and energy commodities using daily event-based structural vector autoregression (SVAR). We find that the geopolitical shock affects the markets of wheat (2%), corn (1%), and European natural gas (7.5%). However, substantial heterogeneity is observed among the agricultural and energy markets. Geopolitical risk stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict affects the European natural gas market more strongly than the US and Asian markets. The regional segment of natural gas markets could explain this. Finally, our analysis explores how geopolitical news affects the dynamics of stock, currency, and bond markets.

Energy Protectionism: Tren Meningkatnya Kebijakan Proteksionisme Energi di Uni Eropa

This research discusses the impact of EU energy protectionism in the face of global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Those two major events reveal the risks of over-dependence on foreign suppliers and the lack of diversification in the EU supply chain. As a solution, the EU has implemented various policies, including RePowerE, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and Green Deal Industrial Plan (GDIP), to reduce dependence on energy imports and increase domestic renewable energy production. Through the analysis of neoliberalism and Game Theory approaches, particularly the Prisoner's Dilemma concept, this article explores the implications of protectionist policies on international trade stability. The analysis shows that while protectionist policies can strengthen the EU's energy independence and domestic security, they also have the potential to trigger international trade tensions and protectionist retaliation from other countries.

Multifractal Analysis of International Energy and Agricultural Markets Under the Influence of Russia–Ukraine Conflict

Taking six representative futures in the international energy and agricultural markets as the research objects, we use multifractal analysis methods to study the fluctuation characteristics, market risks and cross-correlations within and between these markets before and after the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine conflict in this paper. The empirical results show that both the auto-correlations and cross-correlations have obvious multifractal features. It is confirmed that the multifractal strength and market risks of the international energy markets have weakened, while those of the international agricultural markets have enhanced after the Russia–Ukraine conflict broke out. In addition, the Russia–Ukraine conflict has intensified the strength of the multifractality and the degree of fluctuation complexity between these two classes of international markets. Further, the intrinsic multifractal natures of cross-correlations are tested, and the apparent and intrinsic multifractality before and after the conflict are revealed. Finally, some policy suggestions are put forward based on the empirical results.

The Ukrainisation of society and culture in contemporary Ukraine

As the Russian-Ukrainian conflict unfolded, Ukrainians began to perceive language as a political matter. The successive actions of the Russian Federation, such as the annexation of Crimea, the war in the Donbas region, and full-scale aggression in 2022, further solidified the Ukrainian language as a unifying force against the aggressor, while the Russian language became increasingly associated with the enemy and occupier. This shift in perception has fueled public support for the Ukrainisation of public life, resulting in measures such as increased quotas for Ukrainian programs on television, promotion of Ukrainian music on the radio, Ukrainisation of education, and mandatory use of the Ukrainian language by government officials and service providers. The ongoing war and collective efforts of Ukrainian society have solidified a distinct Ukrainian identity separate from Russian identity, with the Ukrainian language firmly established as their mother tongue.

Banking Performance During the Global Financial Crisis: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh

Purpose-The Russia-Ukraine conflict and 19 pandemics have severely damaged the world economy. Banking institutions are crucial to the functioning of any economy, and their financial standing is a vital indicator of the economy's stability. Any major development, be it political or economic, has an impact on the banking industry. The dollar rate's volatility and other issues hurt the GDP. Therefore, the study examines banking performance in vulnerable global situations before and during the pandemic. This study utilizes 7 years of panel data to analyze global financial crisis banking performance. Design/methodology- Eight ratios were used to compare the banks' profitability, efficiency, liquidity position, and default risk: return on asset, asset utilization ratio, operational efficiency ratio, debt to asset ratio, loan to deposit ratio, loan to asset ratio, credit risk, and bank size. The descriptive statistics show lower ROA and AUR values for banks, but a lower CR value suggests that pandemic-era borrowers will repay their loans on time. Findings – Due to their reliance on borrowed capital, banks may be more vulnerable to default and financial leverage since they lack the liquidity to meet unforeseen requirements for funds. This is indicated by the higher mean values of DAR, LDR, and LAR. Ratio analysis shows that pre-pandemic banks profited well throughout the pandemic. State-owned banks have a worse position in profitability, efficiency, and default risk but a better position in liquidity in both study periods. Conventional banks placed first in profitability, but Islamishariah-based banks placed first in efficiency, high liquidity risk, and low default risk. Originality –This study will help bank officials find the flaw and prevent it from improving financial performance and recovering from the global crisis. This may assist bank investors and depositors in choosing wisely.

The heterogeneous reaction of green and conventional bonds to exogenous shocks and the hedging implications

Unlike most previous studies considering the yields on green bonds versus conventional bonds or the hedging ability of green bonds against downside market risk, the main purpose of this paper is to paper examine the short-term response of green and conventional bonds to the Russia-Ukraine conflict shock and the US Federal monetary policy tightening. Using daily data from August 3, 2021 to March 29, 2022, this paper conducts an event-based study (Cumulative Abnormal Returns, CAR) and then applies a hedging analysis in the context of increasing geopolitical risk and financial stress. The analysis reveals that green bonds exhibit a stronger reaction to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the US Federal rate hike than conventional, municipal, and treasury bonds in different time frames. Compared to conventional, municipal, and treasury bonds, green bonds offer lower negative CAR responses during the event window and the [-5, +5] period, suggesting a rigidity feature. The dynamic correlation and hedging analysis indicate that green bonds, unlike the other bonds indices, have a negative dynamic correlation with both geopolitical risks and financial stress, implying a hedging ability around the conflict shock and the Federal tightening cycle. These findings enrich the existing literature on green bonds, offering a wide range of applications for investment managers and policymakers.

Exploring the Macro Impact on China's Economy in the Post-epidemic Era and the Russia-Ukraine Conflict and the Countermeasures

Exploring the Macro Impact on China's Economy in the Post-epidemic Era and the Russia-Ukraine Conflict and the Countermeasures

New roles for energy and financial markets in spillover connections: context under COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine conflict

This paper comprehensively investigates spillover connections among eight markets in the context of COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine conflict. The spillover effects are investigated from the perspectives of average and dynamic network connectedness effects. Empirical results show that changes in market stability are caused during the two periods investigated, and the effect during COVID-19 is stronger. In addition, among the spillover frameworks of energy and financial markets, the crude oil and equity markets were the major risk sources under COVID-19, while natural gas was the major risk source during the Russia–Ukraine conflict. This paper provides new insights on the spillover connections among eight markets based on the crisis periods of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine conflict.