The analysis and forecasting of the development of Polish seaports after Russia's aggression against Ukraine (on the example of the port complex of Szczecin and Swinoujscie)

The purpose of the article was to present the results of analysing, diagnosing and forecasting port activity in the context of the armed conflict taking place in Ukraine. According to the author, they require not only the use of econometric methods but also the participation of experts. It is a methodological proposal for a decision support system (DSS), subsequently used in practice. The military actions and their economic consequences in a country more than 1,000 kilometres away from Polish seaports, as shown in the article, had a direct (and very rapid) impact on both the volume of transhipments and their structure. It turns out that they even affected a change in the previous (historical) import-export relations. Goods that were loaded at ports are now unloaded and vice versa. The basic thesis to be verified was that the disruption of existing logistics supply chains does not have to lead to stagnation of ports, on the contrary, it can be an effective trigger for their accelerated development. In 2021, the Szczecin-Swinoujscie port complex was the 7th most important port in the Baltic Sea. As a result of the change in the structure of transhipments after the outbreak of war in 2022 and the arrival of new goods (including those of Ukrainian origin) in the ports, it moved up to the sixth position, overtaking the port of Klaipeda. In 2023, another rise in the ranking ahead of the (nomen omen) Russian port of St. Petersburg is very likely, which seems to be confirmed by forecasts prepared by port analysts.