Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has slowed economic growth around the world, particularly in the EU, a United Nations official told a reporter from the Ukrainian outlet Ukrinform on Jan. 5. Hamid Rashid, the UN’s Global Economic Monitoring Branch (GEMB) chief, said that due to Russia’s war, the EU’s economic prospects for 2024 were “quite gloomy.” Rashid led the writing team for the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2024 report, which the UN released Jan. 4. Rashid said that the EU’s GDP grew by only 0.6% last year, and that next year the expected growth rate is 1.2%. “This is a v…