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“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has clouded the medium-term global economic outlook and threatens the recovery from the Covid-19 crisis,” says Alvise Lennkh, deputy head of sovereign and public sector ratings at Scope.

“Trade, energy, tourism and finance are the primary channels through which the impact of the war and sanctions on Russia are spilling over to other countries, amid the broader uncertainty over the conflict’s duration, possible second-round effects and the consequences for business and consumer confidence,” says Lennkh.

The different ways in which the consequences of the war are stoking inflation in Europe is one good example of the multidimensional impact of the crisis.

“The dependence of European countries on Russian energy imports is feeding through record high energy inflation in several countries,” says Brian Marly, associate analyst at Scope. “Within the euro-area, Germany, Italy and Slovakia have experienced record high energy price increases in recent months, ranging between 22% and 31%.”

“In comparison, central and eastern European countries dependent on Russian energy imports, including Bulgaria, Czechia and Hungary, are registering relatively more moderate energy price increases but headline inflation is higher, in part due to the higher weight of energy prices in inflation indices for these countries,” Marly says.

For many countries further from the conflict zone itself, the impact of the war and sanctions on commodity prices is fueling already high headline inflation as is the case for Argentina, Ethiopia, Georgia, Nigeria and Turkey.

Scope has created a “heatmap” of the economic consequences of the war to help identify which countries stand to be most affected by the crisis.