‘If people are in a bunker, business stops’: Missile alerts cost Ukraine $45m for every hour they halt businesses

Minister tells Guardian of trade-offs Kyiv facing as it tries to keep normal life moving amid Russian strikes

Missile alerts are costing Ukraine an estimated $45m (£34m) for every hour they bring business to a halt, according to the country’s economy minister, as Kyiv searches for ways to keep the economy running under an intensifying Russian bombardment.

Russia has increasingly targeted the infrastructure underpinning Ukraine’s economy, striking industrial sites, warehouses, logistics hubs and datacentres in what Oleksandr Kravchenko, the minister for economy and the environment, described as an effort to “destroy pretty much the entire economy”.