Ukraine is empty: fewer children and residents. “Many don’t come back, it’s a disaster”

FROM OUR REPORTER
KIEV – Empty cities and especially villages, families torn apart, soldiers standing alone at the front with wives and children abroad who will not return, faltering birth rates: Ukraine is experiencing a demographic crisis of catastrophic proportions. “The collapse of the population will soon lead to very serious economic and social problems. “Putin is losing the war, but he could still win the challenge for the future of a stable and independent Ukraine,” experts say. Little is said about it in public, the problem is hot, but nobody knows how to deal with it, and the urgency of combating the Russian invasion forces us to postpone any other issue. “If the house is on fire, you must first put out the fire and only later think about what furniture to buy,” defended the members of the Zelensky government.

The mass exodus

Still, the issue seems too urgent to put off. Just look at the numbers: At the time of independence in 1991, after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had about 52 million inhabitants. According to the 2001 census, there were 48.5 million people, down an estimated 42 in the months leading up to Putin’s February 24, 2022 invasion. These numbers are consistent with population declines across the former Soviet republics. But the worst blow came in the first weeks of the last 17 months of the war, which led to a mass exodus of women and children abroad, as the government immediately banned the exit of men between the ages of 18 and 65. And today the resident population is estimated at 28 to 31 million.

Who does not intend to return

“From 52 million to less than 30 in three decades: a very heavy loss for the country, which jeopardizes its chances of post-war reconstruction, penalizes economic normalization and ruins the pension system,” explains Alexander Demenchuk, Rector of the Faculty of Political Science in Kiev —. There are no children, so there is no future. Young, upper-middle-class women with excellent school qualifications have left. Worse still, well over half of them have no intention of returning to Ukraine. The children learn at German, Polish, Austrian, French or Dutch schools. The mothers immediately found work. The European welcome policy seemed a miracle of generosity at first, but now it is proving to be a curse.” According to Ella Libanova, a distinguished demographer at the National Academy of Sciences, all of this has had an impact on the birth rate, which has fallen to 0.7 percent is one of the lowest in the world.

The soldiers were left alone

These are numbers that we journalists check every day. All urban centers near the Donbass are semi-deserted: only the elderly, sick and poor remain. But the problem is national. “Most of my best employees quickly found employment in Poland and France. Our industries don’t work, there is no market. None of them will come back,” says Sergei, an IT entrepreneur with offices across the country. It chances upon soldiers and officers who say they have been left alone. “My wife left for Germany with our two children aged 5 and 7 in the first days of the war. Since then we’ve gotten worse and worse. And now I found out that she found a new companion,” says Alexei, a 40-year-old sea captain stationed near Bakhmut. “The conflict will increase the divorce rate. Women leave men, but even soldiers sometimes find new companions,” says Jiulia Komar, a psychologist who studies family hardships. The debate on the question of possible returns is open. According to a recent UNHCR study, 76 percent of refugees intend to return. But Ukrainian experts remain very skeptical. “In the next two months, our government will develop a program to support returnees and try to involve European partners,” says Professor Dementschuk. His hope is that this will happen “as soon as possible”.