Vladimir Putin is already battering Ukraine economically

, a businessman in Kyiv, first noticed a drop-off in customers visiting his restaurant chains a few weeks ago. Perhaps this was normal, he thought: a new covid-19 variant was ripping through Ukraine, so people must be staying home. Then he heard from colleagues in the industry that restaurants in Lviv, Ukraine’s westernmost city, near the border with Poland, were filling up with out-of-towners “from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia”–places closer to Russia. Next Mr Steshenko noticed that his petrol stations had sold out of 20-litre gas canisters, the largest size.Ukraine is not in the middle of a full-blown panic, Mr Steshenko stresses. But the shown by ordinary Ukrainians throughout the months-long crisis with Russia is starting to dissipate. The news suggesting a possible grows more unnerving by the day. That, in turn, is having a dire effect on the economy, which is “already being strangled”, in the words of a diplomat. Conflict with Russia cost Ukraine $280bn between 2014 and 2020, according to one estimate. But the damage from the past few months is of a different order.