MORE than 70 million more people are in poverty than when the Ukraine war began, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said today.

It estimates that 51.6 million more people fell into extreme poverty in the first three months after the war, living off $1.90 (£1.60) a day or less. This pushed the total number globally at this threshold to 9 per cent of the world’s population. An additional 20 million people slipped to the poverty line of $3.20 (£2.70) a day.

Rising poverty levels are linked to soaring food and energy prices. Both were rising fast even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but have increased even more quickly since. Ukraine’s grain production is set to drop by a third on last year, and Russia and Nato remain at loggerheads over terms that would allow its existing grain reserves to be exported via the Black Sea. 

In low-income countries, families spend 42 per cent of their household incomes on food but as Western nations moved to sanction Russia, the price of fuel and staple food items like wheat, sugar and cooking oil soared. 

Food price rises are causing increasing unrest in countries from Argentina to Egypt and Sri Lanka, while the UN now estimates that 70 per cent of the human race are either in poverty or at serious risk of falling into poverty.

Divisions over responses to Russia’s war are likely to break out at this weekend’s G20 planning summit in Bali, with big developing countries from China to India and Brazil attacking Western sanctions for disrupting food and energy supplies.