Ukraine’s Wartime Industries — The Weight of Agriculture, Manufacturing, Services, and Energy

There are plenty of Japanese-language overviews that line up Ukraine’s industries as “agriculture, manufacturing, IT.” But four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, that kind of list can no longer be read as a picture of the present. The scope covered by the statistics has changed partway through, some indicators have stopped being published, and in some cases two different figures appear for the same item in the same year. This article presents the figures for each sector together with what, exactly, each figure counts. All figures are drawn from files that the relevant agencies had published as of September 23, 2026.

Which Ukraine Do These Numbers Cover?

A file published by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (Derzhstat), “Gross Domestic Product by the Production Method and Gross Value Added by Type of Economic Activity” (2010–2024), carries a note at the end of the table. Figures for 2010–2021 exclude the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol; figures for 2014–2021 also exclude part of the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. For 2022–2024, the note reads: “excluding territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation, and part of the territory where hostilities are (or were) taking place.”

The part that shouldn’t be skipped over is the last clause. From 2022 onward, not only occupied territory but part of the combat zone is excluded from the count. The National Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU) external trade statistics carry a similarly worded note. The “structure of Ukraine’s industries” that appears below is the structure of what remains once that territory is excluded. Factories and mines located there are not recorded as having lower output — they disappear from the population being measured.

The Sector Breakdown Is Only Known Through 2024

From the same file, we calculated each sector’s share of gross value added at basic prices. Because these are nominal values at current prices, price movements as well as output volumes shift the shares. As of September 23, 2026, the most recent year for which a breakdown by economic activity is available is 2024.

The item that moved the most was one that doesn’t usually appear on lists of industries. “Public administration and compulsory social security” rose from 7.2% to 23.3% — more than tripling to become the single largest category. If one number were chosen to show how Ukraine’s economy has changed, it would be this one, not agriculture, steel, or IT. However, the published table does not show how activity related to national defense is classified within this category, and we have not confirmed the agency’s classification methodology, so this article states no more than that the share “increased.”

Agriculture — Before “Breadbasket of the World,” Say Which Number

On the 2025 harvest, an announcement from the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture posted on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine’s website on December 26, 2025 states that 57.6 million tons of grain and 17.3 million tons of oilseeds were harvested, and that once the corn harvest is complete, the grain total is expected to reach about 60 million tons. This is a ministry announcement, not a confirmed figure from the State Statistics Service. The State Statistics Service’s annual file on sown area, gross harvest, and crop yield runs only through the confirmed 2022 figures, and its statistical bulletins on harvest progress stop at 2021.

Its share of exports has risen. In the National Bank’s balance-of-payments-based (BPM6) breakdown of goods exports by commodity, the share of “food and raw materials for food” rose from 43.7% in 2021 to 59.3% in 2025. The dollar amount, however, fell — from USD 27.687 billion to USD 22.532 billion. The share rose because other exports fell by even more. Over the same period, agriculture, forestry and fishing’s share of gross value added fell from 12.7% to 8.4%. That is not a contradiction; the denominators are simply different. The phrase “breadbasket of the world” explains neither of these two things.

The quantity harvested and the quantity that can be shipped out are also separate matters. An analysis published on July 28, 2026 by Poland’s Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) states that in 2025, more than 85% of Ukraine’s food exports by volume moved by sea — reaching 95% for grain — and reports that on July 22, 2026, not a single merchant vessel entered a Black Sea port, after insurers had reportedly stopped underwriting new coverage. Ukrinform likewise reported on July 24 of the same year, citing an official’s account, that there had been about 30 attacks on ports in the preceding weeks. Neither of these is a primary source, and the shipping situation since then has not been confirmed.

Manufacturing — Did Output Fall, or Did the Count Shrink?

Steel is a sector where both are happening. According to figures compiled by the World Steel Association (worldsteel), Ukraine’s crude steel output was 21.4 million tons in 2021 (14th in the world) and 7.4 million tons in 2025 (23rd in the world, down 2.2% year on year). In exports too, on the National Bank’s BPM6 basis, “ferrous and non-ferrous metals and articles thereof” fell from USD 15.719 billion in 2021 to USD 4.715 billion in 2025, with its share of total exports falling from 24.8% to 12.4%. In gross value added, mining and quarrying’s share fell from 7.5% to 4.6%.

This is where the note mentioned at the outset matters. Facilities located in occupied territory are not recorded in the statistics as idle factories — they are not counted at all. How much of the decline reflects halted or reduced operations, and how much reflects the shrinking scope of what is counted, cannot be separated from the published totals alone. A sentence like “steel production has fallen to a third of what it was” collapses two separate things into one.

Services — IT Figures Mean Different Things Depending on Who Publishes Them

In the external trade statistics (BPM6, USD million) the National Bank updated on September 18, 2026, exports of “computer services” were 6,943 in 2021, 7,329 in 2022, 6,727 in 2023, 6,446 in 2024, and 6,655 in 2025. The line just above it in the same table, “telecommunications, computer and information services,” stood at 6,810 in 2025. In the State Statistics Service’s gross value added figures, “information and communication” (NACE J) came to UAH 309.677 billion in 2024. All three are called “Ukraine’s IT” in Japanese-language coverage, but they measure different things, in order: the value of cross-border computer-service exports; that same figure plus telecommunications and information services; and domestically generated value added (which includes telecommunications, broadcasting, and publishing).

Figures for the same year can also change later. At the start of the same file, the National Bank notes that it revised its 2022–2024 services trade data to reflect updated information from the State Statistics Service, based on Law No. 4505 of July 3, 2025, which restored the obligation to report statistics to state statistical bodies under martial law. The 2025 computer-services export figure of USD 6,655 million works out to 41.8% of total services exports (USD 15,904 million) and 12.3% of combined goods-and-services exports (USD 53,911 million) — both shares calculated by this article.

Transport moved in the opposite direction. Within services exports, transport fell from USD 4,760 million in 2021 to USD 2,519 million in 2025. The steepest drop was in pipeline transport, from USD 1,664 million to USD 244 million. Sea transport went from 616 to 383. Lumping logistics together under “services” hides this difference.

Energy — How to Read a Number That Looks Like It Grew

The share of “electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply” in gross value added rose from 3.9% in 2021 to 5.4% in 2024. But because these are nominal values at current prices, the share rises if tariffs or fuel prices rise, even if the volume supplied stays the same. Reading a rising share for a sector under attack as straightforward “growth” would be a mistake.

On its own Ukraine-related page, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) states that the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant site was under Russian military control from February 24 to March 31, 2022, and that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been under Russian military control since March 4, 2022, and remains under the control of the Russian Federation today. The agency keeps staff stationed at all five of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant sites. The generation mix itself, however, has not been confirmed against a public primary source. The State Statistics Service’s published energy balance file runs only through 2020.

Indicators That Stopped Being Published, and Indicators That Switched

Trying to write a full picture of Ukraine’s industries, employment is missing. The State Statistics Service’s annual Labour Force Survey file on “number of employed persons by economic activity” covers 2000–2021, and the last bulletin from that survey was published on November 17, 2022. The enterprise-survey-based “average number of employees by economic activity” also stops at 2017–2021. Employment by sector from 2022 onward cannot be shown from that agency’s published data.

Trade data has also switched partway through. On the agency’s front page, GDP is given through the second quarter of 2026 and the consumer price index through August 2026, yet goods imports and exports remain stuck at the cumulative figure for January–September 2025. The annual file on trade structure by commodity runs only through 2023. The National Bank writes that, for goods trade in the fourth quarter of 2025, it relies on State Customs Service data “because official data from the State Statistics Service is not available,” and states outright for another table that it has not updated it “because the State Statistics Service’s database on external trade is unavailable.” Even under the same label of “official statistics,” the way the numbers are produced changes partway through the year.

When the basis differs, two figures appear for the same item in the same year. Goods exports for 2021 were USD 68.07233 billion according to the State Statistics Service’s trade-structure-by-commodity data, and USD 63.621 billion according to the National Bank’s balance of payments. The National Bank publishes a reconciliation table showing that the difference consists of adjustments to FOB pricing, informal trade, processed goods, humanitarian aid, postal items, and similar items. Neither figure is wrong — the two simply use different standards.

A List Can Be Made: It Needs the Right Caveats

Lining up Ukraine’s industries by sector is still possible today. But every figure in this article covered a range that excludes occupied territory and part of the combat zone, for a different year, on a different basis. Scope, point in time, unit and currency, nominal or real, estimate or confirmed, and the publishing body: an item you cannot attach these six things to is safer left off the list.

This article was not written to present any particular sector or region as promising. The sector-by-sector figures show how the composition of output and exports has changed; they are not a list of business opportunities.