Vanishing Ukraine

According to official 2019 data, Ukraine has lost more than 13 million residents in 30 years. It is afflicted by the same processes as the rest of Europe. In a depopulating country, only large cities and surrounding towns are experiencing demographic growth. The difference is that in Ukraine this process is much more rapid, and the war has made it even worse.

In Kharkiv, where I went, you can see it like the palm of your hand. Large cities are losing their most economically active populations. Kharkiv, once full of students, has lost much of its youth, and those who remain are now in their fourth year of studying remotely: first because of the pandemic, now because of the war.

“The lost generation,” is a term that often resounds among Ukrainians.

Demographic collapse

Even before the war, Ukraine’s demographic situation was not the best. As the Center for Eastern Studies writes in its report: “in 2019. […] a government team made electronic estimates (the so-called Dubilet census), using, among other things. data from mobile operators, resulting in a population of 37.3 million (excluding Crimea and uncontrolled parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions). In turn, according to […] data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (Derzhstat), the number of Ukrainians (excluding Crimea, but including the Donetsk and Lugansk regions) was 41.9 million.”

Further blows to demographics came after 2022. Millions of Ukrainians have left the country, and the army has grown to more than 700,000. people. Compared to the year Ukraine gained independence, the population loss was significant.

After the war, someone has to rebuild the country, which is why Ukraine is drafting people over 27 into the army. year of age. The youngest must survive for the country to have a future. However, in addition to the multi-million dollar emigration, more people are still dying in the war. The Ukrainian side does not give the full scale of losses, often responding evasively. In April 2023, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that the number of dead was less than the number of earthquake victims in Turkey (more than 50,000 people died there). However, several months of heavy fighting in Zaporizhia have passed since then. It is also further unclear how many civilians were killed. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, it is more than 10,000. persons, but, as the prosecutor’s office itself stipulates, this is incomplete data.

Villages of the elderly

From Kharkiv I’m heading north to the village of Circunya, where I want to talk to the mayor. The locality was under occupation for seven months and the war left a very strong mark on it.

– Before the war, 6,000 people lived here. people, and in the entire hromada (municipality) 14 thousand. Now there are maybe one and a half thousand people in Circuma,” says Mayor Mykola Sikalenko. He stresses that many people have gone either to Kharkov or further west abroad.

Among those who have stayed in Circumstances, most are elderly people with pensions insufficient for necessary expenses. These people are often traumatized, or at best indifferent.

All the photos of the war I’ve seen so far on the Internet become vivid in Circumstances. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that there are still people living among the ruins.

– My neighbor’s house was hit by a missile, and the shock wave damaged mine. The neighbor couldn’t stand it. Now she lives with her sister, and her house is not suitable for renovation,” Nadia points out of the dilapidated house. He tells the story energetically, but on the verge of crying. Every word spoken is a huge bundle of emotions and traumas. Nevertheless, one has the feeling that her words hit a void. There are not many cars, the typical machinery of the countryside is not heard, even the animals, if any are still here, do not make noises.

Mostly the elderly, who already have the best years of their lives behind them and have stayed out of habit, have stayed in the Circumscriptions. In their own words, the young left here “because of what to do.”

– I became ill with covid on February 14, 2022. I was in the hospital when the war started. I lived at my daughter’s house in Kharkov, but I returned to Tsirkun once they had liberated it. We are rebuilding. I was born here and I won’t go anywhere from here. I rent an apartment close to my daughter in Kharkov, but there everything is foreign, and here it is my own. I miss my relatives and friends here. Most went to Finland or the Baltic states, where they had to go via Belgorod in Russia,” Nadia says of her perspective.

How many have left?

It is not known how many people left or were deported to Russian territory. This is another demographic blow to Ukraine. According to UN figures, it could be more than 2.8 million people. However, it is not known how many of these people eventually left Russia for the EU.

– For a year, we helped Ukrainian refugees at four road border crossings in Latvia. (There are five in total and two railroads). From November 2022 to November 2023, more than 100,000 entered the EU. individuals. We do not know how many people passed through the crossings in Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, but there was a similar intensity in the Baltics,” says Dagmara Góralczyk of the Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM) Foundation.

Viktor Szmygol, attorney for the restoration of Cyrkun, believes that the priority must be new, modern houses. He himself had a development company, hence his thoughts go to housing.

– The country will be rebuilt by the young, and they must have a place to live so they want to return,” he says.

Will they return? Demographers and analysts do not have optimistic forecasts.

Cyrkuny is lucky anyway, because along with Trościaniec, Posad-Pokrowskie, Borodzianki, Moszczun and Jagodna have been selected as future showcases for reconstruction. Special funds were earmarked for these cities so that after reconstruction they would live “better than before.” The Zelenski administration wants to show that it is working efficiently, and with this to encourage Western investors. On the other hand, it is also supposed to prevent corruption. But there are many more depopulated and devastated cities in Ukraine, and the needs seem endless.

As long as the war lasts, there will be no electricity

– I have been without electricity since February 24. Fortunately, we got a generator, we mainly use it to run the well and pump water,” says a resident of Lypcia.

Geolocation does not work, because the air raid alarm went off again. Then the tracking is jammed, so you need to know the route. I know that the village is located north of Cirkun; from there it takes no more than 10 minutes by car to Russia.

My interviewee’s life revolves around preparing food, cleaning the house and feeding stray dogs.

– There is electricity in the Kharkiv region in general, but here, where there was an occupation, everything is stripped, and yet the border is 8 kilometers away. Until the war is over, it will be what it is,” he says.

– I don’t have a high pension, 2700 hryvnia [about $75 – ed.]. I have to cook for myself,” the elderly woman stresses. For her, humanitarian aid is important and saves money on other products. On the day we spoke, she received a package of household chemicals. Such assistance is provided here by the Polish Center for International Aid thanks to the support of the Ladybug Foundation. Trucks go once a week to the Kharkov area, but also to Kherson, right on the front line.

– Today I got this from a Polish organization,” he points to a bag full of household chemicals. – Every other week, too, the village authorities together with the Kharkiv organization bring a hot meal. Because I don’t cook just for me and my husband,” she says.

– For children?

– No, my two daughters are in Kharkov, and my son is near Odessa. I feed the dogs. Many people went away and left them, and I felt so terribly sorry for them. They are polite, they don’t hurt anyone. I feed more than 40 every day at my home,” says Alina from Lypci.

The end of the war?

– There are 40 million of us, 140 million of them, the numbers speak for themselves,” says Mayor Cyrkun. However, morale, as well as doggedness, is still high. – The Russians have nothing to look for here. If they came in here again, every person, every tree would shoot at them. The West, the US, Poland will help, then we will win, but only if Russia falls apart,” he adds.

– So much death. War of “farm and ownership, not ludji” [ukr. war of states and power, not people]. On their side, too, a lot of young boys were lost,” says a resident of Lypci.

– I liked Russia, I watched their TV and concerts, everything Russian. They were “their own.” What is it all for? They came to shop, we traded, and now the houses were destroyed, people were killed,” I hear strong emotion in the voice of the lady from Circun.

Prospects?

When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the country had a population of more than 50 million. On the day the full-scale war broke out, it was already 37 million. Now? No one knows that. All demographic forecasts agree that it will be bad or very bad. The head of the Institute of Demography and Social Research at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ella Lebanova, predicts that the country’s population could range from 24 million to 32 million people in the next decade. Similar predictions come from a study commissioned by the Council of Europe.

Ukrainian authorities are still hoping for the return of migrants to the country after the war ends. But each month moves that prospect farther away, as refugees increasingly seep into new places of residence and Ukraine is consumed deeper and deeper by war.

However, the Ukrainians have already repeatedly shown their determination at times when few were betting on them. Both in 2014, when the bloodiest clashes began during the protests in Kiev’s Maidan, where more than 100 people were killed in the name of European integration, and in 2022, when they defied Russian aggression. The Ukrainian authorities seem to be counting on their people to rise up against the odds this time, too.