As the country spirals into a demographic disaster, Ukrainian authorities face a quandary: who will be left to pick up the pieces once the war ends?
Ukraine’s population – 42 million before the full-scale invasion in February 2022 – has already shrunk to below 36 million, including several million in areas captured by Russia, according to the demography institute at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences. It estimates the figure will drop to 25 million by 2051.
Ukraine, whose population exceeded 48 million in 2001, faced demographic decline well before the conflict, with millions of citizens heading westward from eastern Europe to escape economic strife and rampant corruption at home. The exodus accelerated when Russia invaded, prompting millions more to flee.
The Centre for Economic Strategy, a Ukrainian think-tank, said in March that about 5.2 million Ukrainians who had left since the invasion remained overseas, in a host of mainly European countries including Russia, Germany and Poland.
The centre predicted that between 1.7 and 2.7 million of those people would remain abroad, and could be joined by hundreds of thousands of adult men – who are currently not allowed to leave Ukraine – when the war ends.
Ukraine will need millions of people to rebuild its shattered economy, experts and politicians say, and to be able to defend itself in a post-war future should Moscow attack again, as many Ukrainians fear it will.
The Kyiv government sought to address the crisis last year when it outlined a demographic strategy to 2040. The strategy centres on stemming further emigration and luring Ukrainians back from abroad, including by improving housing, infrastructure and education, as well as attracting immigrants from other countries if jobs remain unfilled.
Authorities estimate these measures could push the population back up to 34 million by 2040, but also warn that it could fall to 29 million by then if current dynamics continue.
