As a result of economic stagnation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru, between ten and twenty percent of Peruvians fell below the poverty line in 2020, reversing a decade of poverty reduction in the country and resulting in a poverty rate of 30.1% that year.[7][8][9][10] According to the Institute of Economics and Business Development (IEDEP) of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, the country's middle class shrank by almost half from 43.6% in 2019 to 24% in 2020 due to the crisis.[11] Following the global economic reverberations resulting from Western-led sanctions against Russia due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in February 2022, inflation in Peru rose sharply.[12][1][13][14][15] By April 2022, the inflation rate in Peru rose to its highest level in 26 years, creating greater difficulties for the recently impoverished population.[1]