As Friday marked the one-year anniversary of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, CGTN offers a glimpse of how it has cost the two countries and the global economy, and aggravated the world food crisis.

Human cost

From February 24, 2022, to February 15, 2023, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 21,293 civilian casualties including 8,006 killed and 13,287 injured. Among them, At least 487 children were killed and 954 injured.

Nearly 18 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance amid electricity and water shortages during the cold winter months, and some 14 million people have been displaced from their homes, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian army has lost up to 13,000 soldiers since February 24, said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President's Office, in December.

The Russian mercenary company Wagner Group has suffered more than 30,000 casualties since February 24, with about 9,000 of those fighters killed in action, the White House said on February 17.

Economic consequences

According to the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine's annual real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate contracted by 35 percent in 2022. This is the steepest economic decline in over three decades.

Russia's economy contracted by 2.1 percent last year, shrinking less than expected despite sanctions imposed by European nations and the U.S. In 2021, the economy saw a 5.6 percent year-on-year rise.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that the conflict could cost the global economy around $2.8 trillion in terms of lost output.

Grain crisis

Russia and Ukraine are both major global grain producers and exporters. Ukraine accounts for 9 percent of the world's wheat market, 13 percent of the corn market and 11 percent of the barley market, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Ukraine said its grain harvest in 2022 was slashed by about 35 million tonnes from the previous year.

With the grain production cut and export curtailed, the world has been feeling the shocks of food shortages that experts have been warning of since the outset of the conflict. The FAO reported the highest annual index on food prices in 2022 since it introduced such measurements 17 years ago.

The number of people now facing acute food insecurity has soared to 349 million from 287 million in 2021, according to the World Food Program.

Read more:

Year-long conflict in Ukraine exacerbates global food crisis

One year of Ukraine crisis: How it sparked a global energy crisis