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Some scholars have proposed that economies grow by upgrading the commodities they produce and export. Product space theory holds that the export structure is determined by a country's factor endowment and technological level, proposing the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) to analyze the specialization on commodities for countries. With the development of global trade, the network of multilateral trade relations has become increasingly hierarchical and complex. It would, therefore, be valuable to identify general patterns across countries of upgrading the commodity structure in the evolution of their participation in global trade. This paper shows that a typical pattern of change in the dominant types of foreign trade occurs when an economy has grown to a certain scale. With economic development, the advantages of high-technology commodities in trade gradually become more prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of this study is determined by the need to identify the consequences of the war for the economy and the prospects for the development of military-economic relations between Ukraine and other countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the dynamics of the volume and structure of Ukraine’s foreign economic relations during the wartime period and to outline future ways of expanding Ukraine’s foreign activities. To fulfil this purpose, the following methods were used: statistical data analysis; comparison; graphical; and data generalisation. The main results obtained in this paper include the identification of the dynamics of volumes and goods that occupy a considerable part of Ukraine’s exports and imports after the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2014; analysis of the geographical structure of foreign trade and trends in trade with the European Union in 2013-2022; assessment of the commodity and geographical structure of exports and transfers of defence goods from Ukraine in 2014-2021; determining Ukraine’s share in the total volume of exports and imports of defence-related items, the main consumers of exported products, and tracking changes in this share over 2018-2022 compared to 2013-2017; analysis of defence imports in the first half of 2023; substantiation of the proposal to develop the production of defence items, namely drones and long-range missiles, which can be used both to increase the protection of Ukraine’s territory and to strengthen the country’s position in the international market for the export of weapons and equipment during and after the war. The results and conclusions are of practical importance for the Government of Ukraine in developing areas for the development of the country’s defence sector and military-economic relations with other countries