Since the Russian invasion in February, about 8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. After eight months of fighting – and with no end to the war in sight – the prospect that many refugees may never return will exacerbate an ongoing population decline in Ukraine. The mass exodus will make it harder for the country to remain a viable independent state with a functioning economy.
Ukraine’s total fertility rate at the time of its independence in 1991 was 1.8 births per woman – already below the replacement rate of 2.1. By 2001 it had dropped to 1.1, and after a slight uptick to 1.5 in 2012, it stood at only 1.2 in 2020.
Between 1991 and 2014 – the year of Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbas – Ukraine’s population dropped from 51.7 million to 45.1 million. By 2020, if you exclude the territories already occupied by Russia, the population had dropped to 37.3 million. Long before the 2022 invasion, Ukraine was in danger of running out of Ukrainians.
