The escalation of the war around Iran has already gone beyond a regional conflict and has become a factor in global inflation. On March 9, Brent rose above $119 per barrel intraday, its highest level since 2022, and IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that a sustained 10% increase in oil prices could add about 0.4 percentage points to global inflation. The scale of the risk is also explained by logistics: in 2024, about 20 million barrels of oil per day passed through the Strait of Hormuz, which is approximately 20% of global liquid hydrocarbon consumption.
For Ukraine, the fastest channel for transmitting such a shock is the fuel market. After losing a significant part of its own refining capacity, the country relies on imports: in 2024, Ukraine imported about 1.2 million tons of gasoline, and in January-September 2025, imports of petroleum products reached 5.67 million tons. Even before the current price surge, the market remained sensitive to logistics and external conditions: The NBU noted an acceleration in the growth of prices for gasoline, diesel, and liquefied gas due to supply disruptions, and Reuters reported that in January 2026, gasoline imports grew by 70% year-on-year due to a shortage of domestic production. This makes gasoline, diesel, and autogas the most likely first group of goods to react to a protracted oil shock.
“If the conflict around Iran drags on, Ukraine will feel it almost immediately through rising fuel costs, and then through higher logistics, import, and food prices. For our economy, this is not only an external shock, but also additional inflationary pressure on the domestic market,” says Maksim Urakin, founder of the Experts Club analytical center and candidate of economic sciences.
The second vulnerable group is imported products with long logistics and a high share of transport costs. In 2025, Ukraine increased its imports of agri-food products by 13% to $9.12 billion, with the EU’s share exceeding 53.9%. The largest items in the procurement structure were fruits, berries, and nuts ($1 billion), fish and seafood ($999 million), alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages ($870 million), cocoa products ($640 million), coffee, tea, and spices ($471 million), and vegetables ($467 million). It is these categories — from bananas and citrus fruits to coffee, chocolate, and seafood — that are most sensitive to increases in freight, fuel, refrigerated logistics, and dollar-denominated commodity prices.
“Consumers will feel the price increases most noticeably where there is a large share of imports and transportation costs. First and foremost, this concerns fuel, coffee, chocolate, fish, seafood, and fruit, and a little later, goods whose prices include more expensive fertilizers, gas, and packaging,” Urakin noted.
The third risk area is fertilizers and then Ukrainian-produced food. There has already been an increase in prices not only for oil and gas, but also for sugar, fertilizers, and soybeans following the escalation around Iran. At the same time, European gas prices jumped by 35-40% in early March, and the EU convened a coordination group on gas supplies. This is doubly sensitive for Ukraine: the NBU previously estimated the need for gas imports in 2026 at $1.1 billion after $2.9 billion in 2025, and fertilizer imports in 2025 rose to 3.285 million tons.
According to GIZ estimates, Ukraine’s dependence on nitrogen fertilizer imports has already exceeded 60%. This means that if oil and gas prices remain high for a long time, in a few months the pressure may shift to the cost of grain, greenhouse vegetables, milk, meat, and other food products.
Products linked to petrochemicals and metals deserve special mention. Oil is a basic raw material for a wide range of chemical products, and Reuters has already noted that aluminum prices have risen to a four-year high amid the current conflict. This increases the risk of price increases for plastic packaging, household chemicals, paints, certain types of cosmetics, tires, PVC materials, and some construction products. The same applies to bitumen, a direct petroleum product, whose imports to Ukraine, according to industry estimates, will remain significant in 2026.
The currency factor could be an additional amplifier. Against the backdrop of the war, investors are turning to the dollar as a safe haven asset. This is important for Ukraine because oil, gas, coffee, cocoa, fertilizers, and a significant portion of other imports are denominated in dollars, and the EU remains the country’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than 50% of trade in goods. Even without a physical deficit, this increases the risk of more expensive imports in hryvnia.
However, not all goods will react equally quickly. Basic products, where Ukraine remains a major producer — primarily wheat, corn, and sunflower oil — are less dependent on immediate imports, and the wheat and corn harvest in 2025 turned out to be better than early expectations.
Therefore, in the short term, fuel, imported fruits and seafood, coffee and chocolate, fertilizers, chemicals, and some construction materials are likely to see the sharpest price increases. But if the energy shock drags on, the rise in logistics costs will almost inevitably begin to seep into the prices of Ukrainian-made goods.
Source: https://expertsclub.eu/vijna-v-irani-pidnime-cziny-na-palyvo-ta-import-analiz-tovariv/
Aluminum prices showed increased volatility on Monday: earlier in the session, quotes updated their maximum since April 2022, but then began to decline.
The price of aluminum futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 1.1% to $3,387 per ton by 16:07 GMT. During the session, quotes rose 2.8% to $3,544 for the first time since April 2022.
Over the past week, aluminum has risen in price by almost 10%, recording its highest growth in three years, amid fears of supply disruptions from the Middle East, which accounts for about 9% of global production of this metal. Two aluminum plants, in Qatar and Bahrain, were forced to suspend deliveries due to armed conflict in the region.
“A prolonged war will hurt aluminum supplies,” said Gao Yin, an analyst at Shuohe Asset Management Co. According to her, consumers are building up aluminum stocks in case of such an event.
For a more detailed overview of global aluminum production from 1970 to 2024, watch the video on the YouTube channel Experts Club.
According to the results of a study conducted by Active Group and the Experts Club analytical center in February and presented at the Interfax-Ukraine press center, only 13.1% of respondents reported that they use the state drug reimbursement program, 70.6% do not use it, 16.3% had heard of it but did not use it.
“Low use of the program is often associated not with a lack of need, but with barriers to awareness and access,” said Experts Club founder Maxim Urakin.
“If people ‘have heard of it but have not used it,’ then the patient’s path to compensation remains difficult,” added Alexander Pozniy.
The survey was conducted on the SunFlowerSociology online panel on a representative sample on February 11-12, 2026.
The survey involved 1,000 respondents from a representative sample in all regions of Ukraine, except for the temporarily occupied territories.
ACTIVE GROUP, ALEXANDER POZNIY, EXPERTS CLUB, MAXIM URAKIN, MEDICINES, Reimbursement
According to the results of a survey conducted by the research company Active Group and the analytical center Experts Club in early February, 52.3% of respondents said that the prices of medicines they buy regularly have increased significantly, 43.9% said they have increased slightly, 3.6% said they have not changed, and 0.2% said they have decreased.
“The widespread perception of rising prices is a factor that directly affects adherence to treatment,” said Experts Club founder Maksim Urakin.
“Rising prices are prompting some patients to delay purchases and self-medicate, which increases the risk of complications,” said Active Group CEO and co-founder Alexander Pozniy.
The survey was conducted on the SunFlowerSociology online panel using a representative sample on February 11-12, 2026. The survey involved 1,000 respondents from a representative sample in all regions of Ukraine, except for the temporarily occupied territories.
Aluminum prices hit a nearly four-year high on Wednesday amid fears of supply disruptions from the Middle East.
The price of aluminum futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose 3.1% to $3,379.8 per ton by 3:00 p.m. During the session, the price exceeded $3,400 for the first time since April 2022.
Aluminium Bahrain (Alba, one of the largest aluminium producers in the Middle East) announced force majeure on its contracts on Wednesday because it is unable to ship aluminium products.
“This is due to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, which prevents us from shipping. Therefore, we are continuing production, but the metal is here in Alba,” he told Reuters.
According to AZ China, the Middle East accounts for about 9% of global aluminum production.
For a more detailed overview of global aluminum production from 1970 to 2024, see the video on the Experts Club YouTube channel.
More than 11% of Ukrainians never visit a doctor, while almost 10% do so more than 10 times a year.
According to the results of a survey conducted by the research company Active Group and the Experts Club analytical center in early February, 41.3% visit doctors 1-2 times a year, 27.2% – 3-5 times, and 10.4% – 6-10 times.
“The group of people who do not visit doctors at all requires a separate study of the reasons, which may include financial barriers, mistrust, and psychological burnout,” said Alexander Pozniy, director and co-founder of the research company Active Group.
He drew attention to the fact that most respondents visit a doctor once or twice a year, but noted that there may be different reasons for this.
“We need to ask the question, why is this so: because our people are so healthy, or because people cannot go to the doctor or do not trust doctors. But this is a question for the medical professionals themselves,” he said.
Pozniy also noted that according to the survey results, “family doctors are accessible to the majority of the population, especially in cities,” while access to specialists, especially for rural populations and populations in small or remote communities, raises questions “primarily due to the lack of the necessary number of specialists.”
For his part, Grigory Soloninka, a member of the board of the public organization “Kyiv Regional Organization of the All-Ukrainian Medical Society” (VUO), professor of the Department of Internal and Occupational Diseases at the Kyiv Medical University, noted that “we need to return to the issue of rural medicine and, perhaps, make certain changes so that the rural population does not receive fewer services than the urban population.”
“If we take a remote village, then, perhaps, there is a problem with getting to a narrow specialist and receiving specialized medical care,” he said.
For his part, Experts Club founder Maxim Urakin noted that “medicine is part of the country’s economic stability, and when medical expenses erode family budgets, it affects consumption, savings, and people’s ability to work and recover.”
“In Ukraine, almost a quarter of the population spends up to 20% of their family budget on medicine, and one in five spends more than 20%. If we translate this into the language of economic financial analysis, then from the point of view of international methodology, the fact that a person spends more than 10% of their budget is catastrophic. In other words, we see a sign of a serious financial burden,” he said.
The study was conducted on the SunFlowerSociology online panel on a representative sample on February 11-12, 2026. The survey involved 1,000 respondents from a representative sample in all regions of Ukraine, except for the temporarily occupied territories.
ACTIVE GROUP, EXPERTS CLUB, Pozniy, SOCIOLOGY, SOLONINKA, SURVEY, URAKIN, Єременко
