The Rising Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Ukraine Conflict: Inflation and Energy Crisis

Abstract

This paper examines the inflation and energy crises in various countries during the epidemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This paper focuses on the fluctuations of inflation and energy CPI indices in the European market, the US market, and the Chinese market during the epidemic and under the influence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Through research and studies, it found that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was the direct cause of high inflation in the European economy and the epidemic had less impact on the European market. However, the situation in the US market is very different. The US market was mainly affected by the epidemic and was less affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Finally, the epidemic had a relatively large impact on the inflation rate in China and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict had a minor impact on the Chinese market. Ukraine conflict may contribute to the dangerous divergence between advanced and emerging market and developing economies. More broadly, it risks fragmenting the global economy into geopolitical blocs with distinct technology standards, cross-border payment systems, and reserve currencies.