Ukraine's population has decreased by 10 million people, about a quarter of its pre-war total, since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, the United Nations reports.
Florence Bauer, head of the UN Population Fund for Eastern Europe, shared these alarming figures during a press conference in Geneva on October 22.
Bauer points to three main reasons for the sharp population drop: a surge in refugees fleeing the country, plummeting birth rates, and deaths caused by the war.
The birth rate in Ukraine has now fallen to around one child per woman, far below the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain a stable population.
“It is one of the lowest in the world,” Bauer stated, as cited by Reuters.
In 2021, before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s population stood at roughly 41 million. But estimates from Ukraine’s Institute of Demography and Social Research place the current population between 28 million and 34 million as of January 2023.
A large part of the population decline is attributed to the 6.7 million Ukrainian refugees now living abroad, mostly in European countries.
War-related deaths have also contributed to the drop in population, though the full extent of these losses remains difficult to determine while the conflict continues.
