Geneva — Ukraine’s population has declined by around eight million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates plunging, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The U.N. Population Fund said there had not been a census, but that there clearly had been a dramatic population decline in war-torn Ukraine.
“Overall, Ukraine’s population has declined by an estimated 10 million since 2014 and by an estimated eight million since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” UNFPA’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Florence Bauer said in comments sent to journalists.
Ukraine’s population stood at around 45 million in 2014, when Russia first invaded, occupying and annexing Crimea, the agency said, citing data from the national statistics office.
Since then Russia has made incremental gains along the vast front line stretching right across the east of the country.
Geneva — The United Nations reported Tuesday that since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the country’s population has decreased by about eight million, causing a migration and a sharp decline in birth rates. The U. No. The Population Fund stated that although a census had not been conducted, it was evident that the population of war-torn Ukraine had drastically decreased.
According to Florence Bauer, regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia for the United Nations Population Fund, “the population of Ukraine has decreased by an estimated 10 million since 2014 and by an estimated eight million since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” she said in remarks to reporters.
Citing data from the national statistics office, the agency stated that in 2014, when Russia first invaded, occupied, and annexed Crimea, Ukraine had a population of about 45 million.
In Berlin, Biden meets with European allies and insists that the West continue to support Ukraine.
Citing a combination of government and UNFPA data, it claimed that the population had fallen to 43 million by February 2022, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and that it has now fallen to just 35 million.
Bauer told reporters in Geneva that “a combination of factors” was to blame for the sharp drop.
Ukraine already had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe prior to the war, and like many Eastern European nations, it had seen a large exodus of young people seeking better prospects overseas, she said.
According to her, the birth rate has dropped to about one child per woman in the two and a half years since the full-scale invasion, while about 6.7 million people have left the country as refugees.
She emphasized that this was significantly lower than the theoretical replacement rate of two children per woman, which is required to maintain the population size. “That’s one of the lowest in the world,” she said.
“There are also the “several tens of thousands of casualties (from the war), which naturally add to the equation,” Bauer added. “..”.
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but neither country has disclosed the number of casualties. S. . At least 70,000 Ukrainian service members were killed, according to estimates made by officials in August 2023. Since that time, Russia has gradually advanced along the extensive front line that runs directly across the nation’s east.
