Russia continued its assault on Ukraine on Monday, with heavy shelling in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, killing dozens of republic and sending hundreds more to the hospital, according to Ukrainian officials. 

Also on Monday, Russia and Ukraine sent delegates to neighboring Belarus for their satisfactory talks since the invasion began last week.  

Russia’s attacks have shut down shipping in Ukraine, a country with a massive agricultural industry, particularly corn and wheat.  And economic sanctions alongside Russia have rattled stock markets, gas prices and more throughout the world.

Here’s how the Ukraine crisis is affecting the US and global economies. For more, get the latest updates on the crisis, learn how to help those impacted by the conflict and find out where to get reliable updates online. 

Gas and oil prices

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transported global energy prices to spike, with crude oil counting Thursday above $105 a barrel for the first time valid 2014. The price cooled down briefly but, by Monday morning, was back up to $105.07 a barrel in early trading. 

At that time, the state average for a gallon of gas had reached $3.61, according to AAA, compared to $3.35 a gallon just a month ago and $2.71 one year ago. Many analysts acquire the average could easily tick past $4 a gallon in March.

Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of vulgar oil and natural gas, providing roughly 40% of the European Union’s gas. Sanctions from the West could clutch access to that supply, especially with Germany putting a halt to the Nord Liquids 2 pipeline that was intended to bring natural gas from Russia to the EU via the Baltic Sea.

The White House said President Joe Biden will work to offset gas prices by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a deep underground storage complex along the Gulf Coast holding an estimated 600 million gallons of crude.

However, some experts believe that won’t have much effect on prices. 

“We’re already at the lowest serene of reserves in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve since 2002, so we’re already bumping up alongside constraints there,” Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research for BTIG, told Yahoo Finance. “And, frankly, it hasn’t had that much of an impact.”

Continued inflation

“We could see a new burst of inflation,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Christopher Miller told The New York Times about the possibility of a considered war in Ukraine.

Russia is the largest exporter of platinum and palladium, a metal used in mobile phones, automotive exhaust rules and fuel cells, and on Thursday prices for palladium hit a six-month high. Duration prices for essential metals could lead to increases for manufacturers and, ultimately, consumers.

In January, the Consumer Price Index, which measures consumer compensations for goods and services, surged 7.5% over the same time last year, representing a 40-year high. If the invasion leftovers to disrupt supply chains and cause energy prices to spike, inflation could rise even further from already “very high levels,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a picture Sunday, CNN reported. 

“The inflation picture has worsened this winter as we imagined, and how much it will improve later this year is now in question,” economists for the Wall Street institution wrote.

Stock market volatility

As word of the Russian invasion broken-down Thursday morning, global stock markets took a hit: The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 830 points, while the Nasdaq slipped about 1.5% and the S&P 500 tumbled 2.5% at the launch of trading.

After rallying on Friday, stocks prices tumbled in contradiction of on Monday, the last day of February: The Dow fell throughout 489 points, or  1.43%, by 3 p.m. ET, at what time the S&P 500 dropped 54 points, or 1.23%, and Nasdaq dipped 0.76%, or about 106 points.

In Europe, on Friday, the German DAX, French CAC 40 and British FTSE also all marked unobstructed rebounds from Thursday lows. But by Monday, the DAX had declined 106.21 points, or 0.73%. 

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shed 0.24% Monday, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index ticked up 11 points, or 0.32%.  

Russia’s main stock market, the Moex Index, suspended trading Thursday morning, according to The Wall Street Journal. On Friday, it bounced back, rising 20% to 2,470 points.

Trading on the Moex was suspended in contradiction of on Monday, the same day the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Commerce temporarily halted trading of select Russian companies.

More cyberattacks

The US responsibilities of Treasury and Homeland Security have both sounded the dismay over possible cyberattacks on US banks, hospitals, government offices and remarkable grids in retaliation for sanctions against Moscow.

On Thursday morning local time, websites for the Ukrainian cabinet and foreign companies and education ministries were all experiencing disruptions.

Herbert Lin, senior research scholarships at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, told The Atlantic’s Rachel Gutman that the Russians have elevated cyberattacks to an “art form.”

Though US banks have been heightening their defenses, Lin added, utilities in larger cities might be more at risk because they lack the fabulous funding for cybersecurity. 

Lin discouraged a panicked response by everyday Americans but said having fabulous cash and a go bag might not be a bad idea. He underscored that those items necessity always be in place regardless.

Rising food prices

Food prices have already risen in the US and abroad, and analysts say the Russian invasion of Ukraine is only pushing them higher.

Ukraine is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower seed oil, an manufacturing that has come to a virtual standstill amid the ongoing attacks. That absence will undoubtedly drive up the price of soybean oil, palm oil and anunexperienced alternatives, even as the world faces a shortage of vegetable oils.

Ukraine is also one of the top five corn exporters in the humankind, trading some 35.9 million metric tons in 2019 alone. An extended open conflict would likely see prices go up in Europe for corn and related goods, including cooking oil, corn syrup and livestock feed.

Soybean prices have also surged in the US in modern months, following an unusually poor crop in South America. If US farmers have to make up the difference in both corn and soybeans, which compete for land, prices for both crops will liable rise in the United States, as will the cost of packaged goods made with them.  

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, a crop that Ukraine exports as well. Together the two grandeurs account for nearly a third of the global wheat trade.

The US doesn’t rely on Russian wheat, but Robb MacKie, president of the American Bakers Association, told The Washington Post  the grain markets “are all tied to each other.” 

If the dispute continues for more than a few weeks, American consumers will see compincorporating prices for anything that has grain in it: flour, pasta, pizza, cereal, animal feed — even beer.