“Next year will be a year of catastrophic decline in fertility,” said the Mikhaylo Ptuja Institute for Population and Social Studies.
The director of the institute, Ella Libanova, expected the population of Ukraine to decline to 35 million in 2030, attributing this to several reasons, including a decrease in the number of births, starting next year.
“I dream that by 2030 there will be 35 million of us,” Lipanova added. “Unfortunately, this may not happen because the war continues.”
According to an official census, the population of Ukraine in January 2022, one month before the start of the Russian attack, was just over 41 million, without counting the population of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
“We are losing people to excessive deaths (in war). These are not only the dead, but also those who leave because of stress, excessive stress, malnutrition and lack of medical care,” the academic researcher explained.
According to Lipanova, the low birth rate will affect the country’s population within years, as she explained: “We have not yet fully felt it. But 2023 will be the year of a catastrophic decline in this indicator.”
A few weeks ago, the Ukrainian News Agency reported that about 9 million people have left Ukraine since the outbreak of the war, and that between 1.3 and 1.4 million of those are still outside the borders of their country.
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