Trade Resilience of Central and Eastern European Countries to the Shock Caused by the Russia–Ukraine War

The instability of the world economy in the 21st century demands that more interest be paid to the nature of emerging disruptions, their effects, and the ways to ensure the appropriate reactions of affected parties. Research on the economic resilience of various kinds is more prominent as a result, with certain exceptions—trade resilience studies are among those that require more attention, both theoretically, methodically, and empirically. Recent trade resilience studies have focused mostly on the effects of the shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, either on a global scale or a particular country scale. The goal of our study is to examine how the external shock caused by the Russia–Ukraine war influenced the trade resilience of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The methodology used in our research is an elaboration on and modification of approaches used by previous studies on both economic and trade resilience. On the basis of statistical data from the period 2016–2023, we propose the original Trade Vulnerability Index (TVI), adapted for the shock originating from the Russia–Ukraine war. For the resistance index used for measuring CEE countries’ trade resilience, we applied a known but not previously implemented approach. The obtained results showed that all CEE countries’ trade was resistant to the disruption caused by the armed conflict in the initial year, with few exceptions (Baltic States and Poland) in the following (2023) period. Even the trade of countries with high TVI scores (Slovakia and Czechia) has proven to be resilient. The main theoretical contribution of this study is the confirmation of the lack of dependence between the vulnerability of trades to disruptions and their resistance to war in the example of war shock and CEE countries. The implications of the obtained results can be helpful in developing nation-specific policies to increase trade resilience and the effectiveness of structural changes.