Demographic crisis in Ukraine: The population declines by about 10 million people since the war
The United Nations announced on Tuesday that Ukraine’s population has decreased by more than ten million people, or about a quarter, since the start of the Ukrainian-Russian war, as a result of the increase in the number of refugees, the decline in the fertility rate, and the increase in deaths resulting from the war.
“The Russian invasion in February 2022 has made the demographic situation even more dire,” Florence Bauer, UNFPA’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said at a press conference in Geneva.
“The birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in the world, currently around one child per woman, one of the lowest in the world… We need a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to maintain a stable population,” she added.
Ukraine, which had a population of more than 50 million when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, has seen its population decline like almost all of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
In 2021, the last year before the Ukraine-Russia war, its population was around 40 million.
Bauer noted that the precise impact of the war on Ukraine’s demographics could become clearer after the conflict ends, with the possibility of a full census.
In contrast, Russia, which had a pre-war population of more than 140 million, has seen its demographic situation deteriorate since the war, recording its lowest birth rate since 1999 in the first six months of this year, a level the Kremlin has described as catastrophic.
The main factor in Ukraine’s population decline is the flight of some 6.7 million people from the country, while war deaths are another factor, with official estimates of tens of thousands of casualties, while each side believes the other is only reporting a small percentage of its casualties, perhaps no more than 10%.
