UN warns war in Ukraine could amplify cost-of-living crisis

The United Nations Global Crisis Response Group warned in a report Wednesday that the ripple effects of the US-NATO conflict with Russia over Ukraine could exacerbate the human suffering of millions around the globe by escalating food and energy prices amid a worsening “global cost-of-living crisis unseen in at least a generation.”

According to the report, the war has the potential to amplify the ramifications of numerous challenges nations face, such as climate change, severe inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Global Crisis Response group identified three main elements to the cost-of-living crisis: rising food prices, rising energy prices and tightening financial conditions. While each of these elements makes life harder for millions on its own, they have already begun feeding into each other in a vicious cycle. Approximately 1.6 billion people in 94 countries are exposed to at least one dimension of the crisis, with about 1.2 billion living in “perfect storm” conditions vulnerable to all three of them.

The outbreak of war in Ukraine has only inflamed a disaster that was years in the making. But the United Nations and bourgeois press have presented the crisis as a direct consequence of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

After the report’s publication, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a press release declaring Russia’s invasion is responsible for more “bloodshed and suffering.”

“Three months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we face a new reality. For those on the ground, every day brings new bloodshed and suffering. And for people around the world, the war, together with the other crises, is threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution, leaving social and economic chaos in its wake,” the U.N. chief said.

In reality, the cost of living was already rising well before the conflict. The massive surge in inflation is the outcome of bipartisan monetary policies pursued by both the Democrats and Republicans, who printed trillions of dollars to prop up the stock markets and guarantee the wealth of the ultra-rich.