On 9 November 2022, First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko met with representatives of U.S. media in Washington, DC.  

During the briefing, the First Deputy Prime Minister told the reporters about massive strikes on energy infrastructure by russian missiles and Iranian kamikaze drones. The Minister of Economy noted that russian attacks on critical infrastructure in October exacerbated the decline in GDP to 39% against October 2021, which is worse than the 35% in September-August. However, in general, Ukraine’s economy has demonstrated good adaptive capacity and flexibility (resilience) even in new difficult conditions. 

“We estimate the GDP drop at about 30% for the 9 months of the year. However, in the case of continued attacks, and as a result – blackouts, GDP may fall even lower,” Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

The Minister of Economy noted that the Ukrainian Government was aware of russia’s possible plan to leave Ukrainians without electricity and heat in winter, so it prepared actively to overcome consequences of russian attacks. 

“You can already see the remarkable speed at which Ukrainian power engineers are restoring electricity supply to people. Ukrainians also show great commitment: every time we ask people to decrease electricity consumption, we get savings of 7% to 20%. And with such help from people we are able to balance the system more easily,” the First Deputy Prime Minister said. 

During the meeting with representatives of U.S. media, Yuliia Svyrydenko stressed the importance of continued assistance to Ukraine, particularly to support the economy, and emphasized that Ukraine counts on consolidation of bilateral trade relations with the U.S., admission to the investment insurance, as well as further supplies of weapons.