Ukraine and Russia ranked among the ten least peaceful countries in the world

According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, global peacefulness has deteriorated for 13 of the last 15 years due to an increase in political instability, external conflicts, and deaths during internal conflicts. 

The newly released Global Peace Index 2023 looked at 163 countries, accounting for 99.7% of the world’s population, and analysed their involvement in hostilities, as well as their human rights records and military spending.

“If we look at modern wars, they are almost impossible to win,” Stephen Killeley, the Founder of the IEP told Euronews. “You may remember the Russian invasion of Afghanistan followed by the US invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. [Syrian President] Bashar [al-Assad] is still in power.

“Today you have Ukraine, and the situation is fairly deadlocked and then other conflicts like Yemen, which has been raging for almost a decade.”

Both Russia and Ukraine are currently in the bottom ten countries on the index. Ukraine takes 157th place out of 163 states while Russia is 158th. 

Despite the war still raging in Ukraine, Europe remains the most peaceful region on the planet. Ten European countries feature in the top ten most peaceful nations. Iceland has been ranked number one for 16 consecutive years since the GPI project was launched in 2007.

Denmark, Ireland, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia and Switzerland are also on the list. 

According to the report, 2022 was the deadliest year of armed conflict since the 1994 Rwandan genocide (the worst recorded in GPI history).

Ninety-five countries also recorded deterioration in their peacefulness in 2022 while 66 saw improvements.

But the total number of conflict-related deaths from both external and internal wars and skirmishes increased by 96% compared to 2021.  Analysts said figures would have still deteriorated even if Russia and Ukraine were excluded from this year’s report.