Ukraine's monthly consumer price inflation quickened to 0.8% in January compared with the previous month, driven by higher food prices, the State Statistics Service said on Thursday, Reuters reported. It said in a statement that food prices rose by 1.4% last month because of increases in the price of fruits and vegetables. Monthly inflation stood flat at 0.7% in November and December 2022.

Ukraine will need an additional $17 billion in financing this year for energy repairs, de-mining and to rebuild infrastructure, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday, Reuters reported. He told a government meeting that five high-voltage substations in the central, southern and south-west regions were hit during Russia's air attacks on Thursday. The energy sector has been severely damaged following four months of Russian missile and drones attacks.

Ukraine's central bank said on Thursday it would keep its main interest rate unchanged at 25% as inflation pressure remained high due to continued Russian missile strikes on critical energy infrastructure, Reuters reported. The central bank said it expected very sluggish economic growth and a bigger trade deficit this year as the economy adapts to a war-time reality of regular power outages and disrupted supply chains and logistics, Reuters reported.

The World Bank on Tuesday said it had approved an additional financing package totaling $610 million to address urgent relief and recovery needs in Ukraine as the war with Russia continues, Reuters reported. The package includes an additional $500 million loan from the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) that is supported by a guarantee from Britain, and a new project to restore and improve access to health care and address war-related needs for health services, the global lender said.

Europe has been hit hard by the fallout from the war in Ukraine, putting its companies on the front line of what has become a war of economic attrition between the West and Russia that is playing out alongside the real war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. is suffering more than other big countries in Europe, economists say. Inflation is running in the double digits, higher than all of its Group of Seven industrialized peers with the exception of Italy; gross domestic product shrank 0.2% in the third quarter year-over-year, setting the U.K.

Ukraine's economy could shrink by 50% this year if Russia keeps attacking the national power grid and other critical infrastructure, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was quoted as saying on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Russia has launched a series of missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities since October, causing power outages across the country. "The contraction of the Ukrainian economy is projected at the level of 35-40%," Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted Shmyhal as saying.

With Russian missiles pounding apartment buildings, power plants, schools and roads, a glimmering vision of a reconstructed postwar Ukraine seems impossibly far off. But an urgent battle of ideas has already begun over how to manage what would be the most extensive rebuilding project in Europe since the end of World War II, the New York Times reported.

French prosecutors said on Monday they have put a Ukrainian woman linked to the governor of Lebanon's central bank under formal investigation as part of a cross-border probe into alleged fraud to the detriment of the Lebanese state, Reuters reported. Anna Kosakova, with whom central bank governor Riad Salameh has a daughter, according to a birth certificate seen by Reuters, is suspected of aggravated money laundering, a spokesperson at the Paris office of the National Financial Prosecutors said.

Ongoing Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure have increased the cost to keep Ukraine's economy going next year, adding up to $1 billion a month to previous estimates of $3-$4 billion, the head of the International Monetary Fund told the Reuters. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said she was confident that the European Union, United States and other international partners would continue to provide needed support for Ukraine.