According to calculations by Ekonomichna Pravda, the proportion of the standard workday (from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) that regional centers in Ukraine and businesses spent under air raid alerts was analyzed from 2023 through the end of June 2026. This was reported by Dengi.ua, citing information from the publication (available here).
In the western part of the country, the impact of air raid alerts on work remains minimal. In Lviv, Lutsk, and Uzhhorod, sirens sound for only 1-2% of working hours, which is equivalent to a few hours per month. In Kyiv, this figure hovers around 4% and has remained virtually unchanged over the past four years.
The situation is different in eastern and northeastern Ukraine. In Sumy, the proportion of working hours spent under air raid alerts increased from 11% in 2023 to 72% in the first half of 2026. This means that sirens sound for about seven out of every ten working hours. In Kharkiv, the figure rose from 16% to 63%, and in Chernihiv, from 6% to 36%. In Poltava and Dnipro, more than one-fifth of the workday is spent under air raid alerts, which is two to three times higher than the level three years ago. The most difficult situation persists in Kramatorsk, where air raid alerts account for 83% of working hours.
While in 2023 the duration of air raid alerts in Kharkiv was six times longer than in Lviv, by 2026 this gap had increased to a fortyfold difference.
The analysis took into account air raid alerts specifically in regional centers. This approach allows for a more accurate assessment of the actual situation, as regional figures can vary significantly. For example, across the entire Dnipropetrovsk region, air raid alerts last for nearly the entire workday, whereas in Dnipro itself, sirens sound for about a quarter of the workday.
The effectiveness of the zonal alert system was evaluated separately; it significantly reduced the number of forced business shutdowns. Dnipro served as the most telling example: in 2026, air raid alerts actually accounted for 22% of working hours, whereas if an alert had been declared in the city following every regional siren, this figure would have reached 97.6%. In Zaporizhzhia, the proportion of time spent under air raid alerts was 56% instead of a possible 83.3%; in Kharkiv, it was 63.2% versus 86.3%; and in Sumy, it was 72% versus 81.7%.
The positive effect of the regional approach is also evident in the capital. If Kyiv had declared an air raid alert simultaneously with the entire Kyiv region, downtime would have reached 14.3%, whereas in reality it amounted to only 3.8%.
According to the Ukrainian Council of Shopping Centers, in January 2026, shopping centers across the country lost a record 17% of working hours due to air raid alerts, and in May, this figure remained at around 18%. Shopping centers in the Sumy region have suffered the most severe losses, with air raid alerts disrupting between half and 60% of the workday. On average, since the start of the full-scale war, every Ukrainian shopping center has been closed for about 125 working days, which is equivalent to six months of operation.
A survey by the European Business Association also indicates that the current air raid warning system has a significant impact on the economy. According to the survey’s findings, business downtime can reach 50% of working hours, and if half of the country’s economy shuts down during an air raid alert, daily losses can reach 9 billion UAH.