Economic growth in Ukraine is projected to accelerate to 2.8–3.7% during 2027–2028, after a 2026 that ranges from roughly 1% to 1.8% depending on whose forecast is used. The projection rests on four supports, and they are not equally solid. Examining them separately is more useful than debating the headline range.
The four assumptions
| Assumption | Nature |
|---|---|
| Energy system restoration | physical, capital-intensive, slow |
| Increased investment | conditional on the first |
| Gradual return of migrants | behavioural, hardest to forecast |
| Crop growth | most reliable, weather-dependent |
Energy restoration
This is the foundation, and everything else is built on it. The 2026 first quarter contracted 0.5% year on year primarily because of strikes on energy infrastructure and the resulting electricity shortages. Restoration means replacing thermal generation that took decades to build, repairing critically worn distribution networks, and doing both while the system remains a target.
The honest assessment is that this proceeds at the pace of security conditions rather than at the pace of funding. Money is available through reconstruction facilities; capacity that can be rebuilt under fire is the binding constraint.
Investment
Investment follows electricity and security, in that order. No manufacturer commits capital to a facility that cannot be powered or insured. What is currently classified as investment includes a substantial share of defensive expenditure — generators, backup systems, redundancy — which sustains operations without expanding capacity.
The distinction matters for forecasting. Reconstruction spending funded externally will show up in the accounts regardless; private investment responding to opportunity is the component that signals genuine recovery, and it lags security by a considerable margin.
Returning migrants
This is the assumption carrying the most weight and the least evidence.
Millions left. Many have been abroad for four years, and time abroad is the strongest predictor of not returning — children enrolled in local schools, employment secured, language acquired, housing established. The economic literature on refugee return is consistent on this point, and it does not favour the optimistic case.
Return would ease the labour shortage that is currently driving wage growth, expand the tax base and restore domestic demand. Its absence leaves a permanently smaller economy with structurally higher labour costs. The forecasts assume gradual return; the mechanism by which that happens is not specified in any of them, and it is the single largest uncertainty in Ukraine's medium-term outlook.
Harvests
The most dependable of the four. Agriculture has continued to function throughout, with exports of roughly 14 million tonnes of wheat, 25 million tonnes of corn and 1.52 million tonnes of barley in the 2025/26 marketing year. Logistics have been rebuilt around alternative routes and have proved durable.
The constraint is land: approximately 20% of agricultural land sits in occupied territory, capping the sector's ceiling regardless of weather or price.
Bottom line
The 2027–2028 projection is best read as conditional rather than predictive. Energy restoration and harvests are tractable; investment follows security; and the return of the workforce — the assumption doing the most work in the model — has the weakest foundation. A recovery built on three of four supports is still a recovery, but it is a materially smaller one than the range suggests.
This is analysis, not investment advice.