VW chief warns economic damage from war risks being worse than pandemic

The head of Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, has warned that a prolonged war in Ukraine risks being “very much worse” for the region’s economy than the coronavirus pandemic. The interruption to global supply chains “could lead to huge price increases, scarcity of energy and inflation”, Herbert Diess, chief executive of the German carmaker, told the Financial Times. The warning from one of the continent’s best-known business leaders comes as western governments ratchet up their economic efforts to punish Russia, a key global supplier of commodities from gas to palladium, for its invasion of Ukraine.