The direct Russian assault on Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, is a historic and fate-shaping event for the European continent. The complex reactions of the Western world and the subsequent changes made it inevitable for regional experts to acknowledge its significance. However, far fewer voices emphasized the hardships the war triggered for the countries of South Asia. In this region, emerging shortages and price increases became intertwined with long-standing economic and social tensions.
As a result—despite the region’s physical distance from the war zone—the conflict has had, albeit indirectly, a stronger impact on the fate of certain South Asian governments than on those of some Eastern European states bordering the battlefield. Two countries, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, have been hit the hardest.
Though their current situations differ, structural problems that have been accumulating for years were first intensified by the coronavirus pandemic and are now further aggravated by the economic consequences of the war, leading to a complex and difficult-to-manage crisis in both cases. This analysis uses their examples to illustrate how policy failures and unfortunate historical turns can compound, ultimately shaking national economies and leading to the downfall of governments that had, until recently, enjoyed considerable support.
