Ukraine’s air-raid sirens can sound for 10 hours a day. Its economy minister says every hour costs $45 million.

Air raid alerts warning of Russian attacks cost Ukraine about $45 million an hour, Ukrainian Economy and Environment Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko estimated in an interview with The Guardian. He said Ukraine sometimes spends up to 10 hours a day under alerts, which regularly force most businesses in the country to suspend operations while employees take shelter.

To reduce the economic damage, Ukraine’s government introduced a new two-tier alert system: a “red” alert signals the threat of a missile strike and requires people to take shelter, while a “yellow” alert signals a drone threat and allows businesses to keep operating.

More than half of businesses keep operating during “yellow” alerts, Kravchenko said, although the danger remains. On the afternoon of September 28, during a “yellow” alert, a Russian drone struck a building in central Kyiv belonging to Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences. Two people were killed.

The Kremlin intends to paralyze Kyiv before winter, The Economist reported. Several senior Ukrainian officials told the publication that Vladimir Putin had ordered strikes on civilian sites. One of the officials said, “They want people to be afraid of going to the supermarket.”

Russia did step up its attacks on civilian infrastructure in August and September. Kravchenko sees this as an attempt to “destroy pretty much the entire economy” of Ukraine. He estimated that attacks on factories, warehouses, data centers, and other sites have caused about $10 billion in damage since the start of the year. These losses are putting increasing pressure on the budget.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently estimated the shortfall in the 2026 budget at about $27 billion. The figure raised concerns among EU leaders. Kravchenko said spending cuts had reduced the deficit to $20 billion. But Kyiv will need $52.6 billion in external financing next year. Less than half of that amount has been secured so far, and the authorities are discussing further spending cuts and tax increases.

But Kravchenko does not attribute the deficit to mismanagement, corruption, or excessive spending under former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. “The cost of war is simply increasing,” he said.

Ukraine now needs to strengthen its air defenses and speed up development of drones capable of intercepting Russia’s new jet-powered drones, Kravchenko said. He said Ukraine is better prepared this year for what could be the hardest winter of the war.

Further reading

Russia is wearing down Kyiv’s air defenses with near-daily drone attacks. Now the strikes continue into daylight.

15 hours ago

The war in photographs: Kyiv and Vyshhorod

Overnight on September 30, Russia attacked Kyiv and the Kyiv region with drones and various types of missiles. Two people were killed in the capital, and four others were injured. In Vyshhorod, in the Kyiv region, a child was killed, and three people were rescued from the rubble of a destroyed house.