Where does Ukraine stand after four years of full-scale war?

Executive Summary

• While Ukraine remains under extreme military, economic, and demographic pressure, it continues demonstrating notable resilience, societal cohesion, and institutional functionality. Although civilian casualties increased sharply in 2025, two thirds of Ukrainians report readiness to sustain the war as long as necessary.  

• Ukraine’s economy achieved modest GDP growth in 2025. Inflation remains relatively contained, and businesses adapt to wartime constraints.  

• However, structural bottlenecks—including labour shortages, infrastructure damage, and a growing national debt—continue to hinder growth. Ukraine’s budget depends heavily on external financing, with European support covering almost the entire deficit.  

• On the battlefield, Ukraine faces a positional war with high manpower demands and an urgent need for air-defence systems, long-range strike capabilities, and ammunition. Substantial Western assistance remains essential to meet critical security needs.  
• Ukraine’s endurance, adaptability, and reform momentum provide strong justification for increased Western military and financial support. A record defence budget for 2026 underscores both the scale of the challenge and Ukraine’s rapid expansion of domestic arms production. 

Introduction 

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), the year 2025 was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine after 2022. HRMMU has verified that conflict-related violence in Ukraine in 2025 killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142, an increase of 31 per cent  compared to 2024. Nevertheless, in early 2026, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology measured that 65 per cent  of Ukrainians are still ready to endure war as long as necessary. The level of Ukrainians’ optimism concerning the country’s future has, by early 2026, not diminished but, on the contrary, compared to 2024-2025, grown (see Figure 1). To which degree is this Ukrainian attitude either an expression of forced euphoria or a reflection of Ukraine’s continuing resilience, resources and potential, in the ongoing war?  

Figure 1: Ukrainians’ predictions for the next 10 years, Oct. 2022 - Jan. 2026  

Source: Based on KIIS data, <https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1583&page=1> 

Economic turns and prospects 

After a steep decline in 2022, the Ukrainian economy partly recovered in 2023. In spite of continuing war and purposeful Russian destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, the economy has since stabilised and remained relatively stable. In 2025, real GDP growth slowed to approximately 2 per cent due to remaining security risks, infrastructure and capacity losses, electricity shortages, and labour constraints. The trade deficit has deepened as imports rose to $84.8 billion and became about twice as large as exports. Inflation in 2025 was at approximately 8 per cent . The average level of business and consumer confidence rose compared to 2024, indicating societal adaptation to the war environment. 

For 2016, the National Bank of Ukraine has made a growth forecast of  1.8 per cent while the Ministry of Economy maintains a target of 2.5 per cent. Inflation is expected to be 7.5 per cent indicating further slowdown of price growth compared to 2025. Ukraine's national debt will peak in 2026, exceeding 110 per cent of gross domestic product, but then decline, as forecasted in a 2025 IMF report.  

Military capacities and challenges 

So far, approximately 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have fallen since 2022. The nature of the war remained throughout 2025 positional. During that year, conquering one square kilometre of Ukrainian land cost Russia 93 casualties on average. A chronic lack of manpower is a major issue for Ukraine, as well as for Russia. 

In 2026, Ukraine is projected to have a record defence budget of approximately UAH2.8 trillion, or 27.2 per cent of GDP. This will make it 20th largest defence spender in the world. Most revenues and borrowings collected by Ukraine on its own will in 2026 be directed towards securing soldiers’ salaries, arms procurement, military logistics and troop reserves.  

Ukraine is quickly developing its military-industrial complex. The country now leads in the development of inexpensive drones and cruise missiles, while also cooperating with partners on this and other types of arms. According to a prediction of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, the capacity of the Ukrainian military industry will almost double in 2026.   

Although, for instance, drones production is projected to rise to over 7 million units, there are, at the same time, challenges. They include a shortage of air defence/missile defence systems needed not only at the front, but also in Ukraine’s rear for protection of the energy infrastructure, a dearth of adequate instruments to counter new Russian fibre-optic drones, and the continuing challenge to hold the front line. 

Demographic changes and migration 

Especially since 2022, the war has exacerbated Ukrainian demographic problems that were part of larger trends in the post-Soviet space – above all through outmigration. It is estimated that today 30.5 million people live on Ukraine’s government-controlled territory, i.e. approx. 7 million less compared to the last estimate by the government in 2019. Already before 2022, Ukraine was with an average age of citizens of around 42-43 years an “old nation”. After a steep decline of the birth rate in 2022 by 25 per cent, the downturn has gradually slowed to 6 per cent in 2024, and 4.5 per cent in 2025 when there were, however, still three deaths for every newborn in country. 

Figure 2: Permanent outmigration from Ukraine, 2022-2025

Source: Based on Opendatabot,  see: 

 <https://opendatabot.ua/en/analytics/ukrainians-emigration-trend-2025-12> 

In November 2025, 4.33 million non-EU citizens who had left Ukraine were under temporary protection in the EU. Around 260,000 people moved to the US using the U4U humanitarian programme, and almost 300,000 to Canada using similar programme.  

The decision of many Ukrainians to return to Ukraine is dependent on prospects for future peace and security. Nevertheless, some have already returned home in spite of continuing war because of family connections, the familiar environment, nostalgia, high prices abroad, good medicine, patriotism, home-sickness and unsuccessful integration into their host countries.  

Key social and political issues 

The country faces a multitude of not only existential foreign, but also complicated domestic challenges – social depravation, political polarisation, demographic decline, veterans’ integration, environmental devastation, cultural struggles and business conflicts. Ukraine’s state apparatus has, in spite of its bad reputation, been coping – in collaboration with civil society and various foreign partners – relatively well with these issues and is investing the preservation of social stability.  

For instance, in 2026, the total expenditures of the Ministry of Social Policy on social support for citizens will amount to UAH468.5 billion, which is UAH47.6 billion more than in 2025. During 2025, Ukraine has improved its position in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index by one place in the world-wide country ranking, although the country still ranks only 104th out of 182 countries. Ukraine’s EU integration is a major source of societal optimism and, in spite of Hungarian resistance, keeps advancing. Ukraine’s partial accession to the EU could start already in 2027.   

Conclusions and policy recommendations 

Since 2022, Ukraine has demonstrated high social resilience, innovation potential, civic mobilisation, economic resourcefulness, and adaptation capacity during times of war. Nevertheless, Western financial and military support has remained hesitant, and even declined during 2025, when compared to 2024. The key reason being an almost complete seizure of US support to Ukraine, a change which has been compensated – but not fully – by a sharp increase in European support.   

The current levels of support for Ukraine illustrates a contradiction: On the one side, the Ukrainians have, since 2022, shown remarkable results in both their defence against Russia as well as their continuation of soci0-political development, despite continuing Russian military pressure and attacks against Ukrainian civilians. On the other side, the Western overall support has, after a peak in 2024, fallen in 2025 – irrespective of the high Ukrainian resilience.  

This needs to be corrected in 2026. Against the background of the Ukrainian state’s past and recent performance, a continuation and intensification of resolute Western support for Ukraine appears as a coherent and justified strategy.  

Western and non-Western countries should, in the interest of ensuring their own security, and defending the European security order and rules-based world order that underpins it, rapidly increase both their military support and their non-military aid for Ukraine in 2026. The experience of Ukraine’s performance during the past four years suggests that such investment will not be lost. It can eventually lead to the achievement of a just peace between Ukraine and Russia. 

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