The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) stated that no census has been conducted in Ukraine, but a dramatic decrease in the population is clearly observed.
“Since the beginning of the war, the population of Ukraine has decreased by more than ten million,” Florence Bauer, UNFPA’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, told reporters in Geneva. She emphasized that this decrease has been observed since the beginning of the war and was caused by a combination of several factors.
Even before the war, Ukraine had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and like many countries in Eastern Europe, Ukraine was experiencing population decline as young people left in search of greater opportunities, Bauer said.
But since the start of the war, some 6.7 million people have left the country and become refugees, while the birth rate has dropped to about one child per woman, said UNFPA’s regional director.
“It’s one of the lowest rates in the world,” she said. In addition, Ukraine has “several tens of thousands of (war) victims, which of course adds to the equation,” she added.