Ukraine's GDP 1990 - 2025

As a result of mass privatization and the neoliberal shock therapy that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's GDP per capita fell dramatically. Measured in constant 2015 US dollars, GDP per capita remained below its 1990 level throughout the period up to 2025. Measured in purchasing power parity (PPP), GDP per capita in 2025 was likewise still significantly below its 1990 level. Ukrainian politics was simultaneously dominated by a powerful oligarch class, and the country developed into one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.

The first column shows GDP per capita in constant 2015 US dollars and therefore takes inflation into account. The PPP column shows GDP per capita adjusted for differences in purchasing power and measured in constant 2021 international dollars.

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI).

It is also important to distinguish between GDP and gross national disposable income. GDP measures domestic production, whereas national income also takes into account net income flows to and from abroad. What matters here is not simply the income flowing into the country, but also the income flowing out. Net primary income from abroad is therefore the difference between primary income received from abroad and primary income paid to abroad. Interest, dividends and other capital income received by Ukraine from abroad increase national income, while interest, dividends and other capital income paid to foreign investors reduce it. The same principle applies to wage income flowing to and from foreign labour.

Gross national disposable income also takes account of net current transfers from abroad. Here too, it is the net balance that matters: current transfers received from abroad minus current transfers sent abroad. Unrequited transfers without an obligation of repayment, such as grants, can therefore increase the resources available to the Ukrainian economy, while transfers made by Ukraine to other countries reduce them.

Loans, by contrast, should not be regarded as income. A loan provides financing, but at the same time creates a debt obligation that normally entails both principal repayments and interest payments. In Ukraine's case, it is therefore important to distinguish between the nominal financing provided to the country and the economic burden represented by the resulting debt. If a debt is subsequently wholly or partly forgiven, or if it is in practice never repaid, the economic character of the transfer changes. Such debt forgiveness may, in economic terms, come to resemble a grant, but it should be distinguished in national accounting from an original grant.

It is therefore not sufficient to look at the development of Ukraine's GDP after 2022. One must also take into account the total flows to and from abroad and the net balances resulting from them: net primary income, net current transfers, and the actual servicing of external debt. Only on this basis is it possible to assess how many economic resources are genuinely available to Ukraine. Large foreign loans can provide substantial financing without increasing gross national disposable income to the same extent, because they simultaneously create future obligations. By contrast, net unilateral transfers can directly increase the resources available to the economy.

In 2014, the country was in desperate need of a loan. It was presented with two offers. At the time, Kyiv was negotiating with the European Union over a free trade agreement and further Ukrainian integration, accompanied by $15 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, there were conditions attached to the agreement, including that Kyiv should lift its ban on private land ownership and implement harsh austerity measures, including cuts to pensions and reductions in fuel subsidies.

On the other hand, the Russians offered Ukraine a deal to join the Eurasian Economic Union and a $15 billion loan without conditions and without requiring Ukraine to adopt neoliberal reforms or destroy its economy for the benefit of private multinational corporations. President Viktor Yanukovych suspended negotiations with the European Union and chose Moscow's offer.

In response, the CIA supported the Maidan coup against the Ukrainian president at the time and installed a new vassal regime dominated by neo-Nazi groups such as the Right Sector, the Svoboda Party, C14, and the Azov Battalion. Prominent neo-Nazis such as Arsen Avakov and Ihor Tenyukh were placed in charge of the Ministries of Interior and Defense, while the noted Hitler defender Andriy Parubiy became Speaker of Parliament.

These neo-Nazi organizations received large amounts of funding from Ukrainian oligarchs such as Igor Kolomoisky (Zelensky's largest donor) and Rinat Akhmetov. The United States had previously also financed these neo-Nazi groups during the 2004 Orange Revolution, in which CIA front organizations such as USAID and the NED overturned the presidential election in Ukraine following Yanukovych's victory and subsequently rigged the re-run of the second round in favor of NATO's preferred candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. The Maidan coup was therefore actually the second time Yanukovych was overthrown by the West.

Avakov formally incorporated the Azov Battalion into Ukraine's National Guard, and Petro Poroshenko openly declared that the ultimate goal of the new regime would be genocide against the Russian people living in Donbas. First, they outlawed the Russian language and opposition parties such as the Communist Party. Then neo-Nazi formations were brought in from Kyiv and carried out massacres in Kharkiv and Odesa, murdering 48 peaceful demonstrators in the trade union building in Odesa by burning them alive with Molotov cocktails.

The culmination of all this was that the Ukrainian Armed Forces spent the next twelve years slaughtering 15,000 civilians with US-supplied cluster munitions and artillery in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics after they declared independence, while also engaging in widespread torture and other human rights abuses, as documented by the UN and OSCE in reports that were covered up. In fact, it is claimed that as recently as this month, in the city of Starobelsk in Luhansk, Zelensky deliberately targeted a school dormitory and killed 21 children with NATO-supplied UAVs and Starlink technology provided by Elon Musk.

None of this mattered, however, to the United States or the European Union because the new government approved the austerity and privatization programs and transferred a third of the country's land to Wall Street financial giants such as BlackRock.