The Ministry of Economy of Ukraine was forced to return to its original forecast of a 32-33.5% fall in real gross domestic product this year due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, Minister of Economy, said at a briefing on Friday.

"It is absolutely obvious that the macroeconomic forecast should be changed, more correctly, adjusted. At the beginning of the year, we envisaged that the economy would fall at the level of 32-33%. Then the economy showed very high adaptive abilities. But, given the attack on the energy system that took place in in November, of course, some enterprises suspended their activities, which means that we, as the Ministry of Economy, have somewhat worsened our prospects and, unfortunately, returned to our previous forecast: by the end of the year, the fall in GDP could be 32-33%, even 33.5%," Svyrydenko said.

She suggested that colleagues from the National Bank of Ukraine would agree with this.