External shocks and human social security system: evidence from Ukraine

The paper explores the impact of such an external factor as military aggression on the human social security system in Ukraine, since during a war this system mainly influenced by external factors than internal ones. To conduct the study, clustering was carried out using the Kohonen self-organizing maps on the dataset covering the period from 2010 to 2023 for 5 countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) in order to identify common patterns, since all of them were subjected to military aggression. Results of the research showed that Ukraine during the full-scale war (since 2022) and for several years before it (given creeping aggression and Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014) was located in the isolated cluster, the most striking features of which are internally displaced persons, armed forces personnel, and the proportion of people living below 50 percent of median income. In addition, clustering of countries worldwide in 2022 was carried out according to the same indicators. It was concluded that both full-scale hostilities and hybrid wars provoke deteriorations in human social security. But, the degree of deceleration of the economic activity and, consequently, worsening of human social security varies depending on the character of the hostilities.