Ukraine is experiencing a “demographic catastrophe,” says Jadwiga Rogoza, a researcher at the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW). As in Russia, the problem emerged in the 1990s, explained by years of negative birth rates and mass emigration. When it became independent in 1991, Ukraine had a population of 52 million. Ten years later, the only census conducted since then counted 48.5 million inhabitants.

With millions of refugees and deaths due to war, the UN estimates that 36.7 million people reside in the area. A study commissioned by the EU Council shows that the population will shrink by 24% to 33% depending on the duration of the war.

“The bloodshed among the population caused by the war will seriously affect the country’s reconstruction and economic recovery in the coming years,” concludes Maryna Tverdostup, economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW).

“There are millions of us, but there must be more.” The phrase was from Vladimir Putin during a rally for 130,000 people during the 2012 election campaign. Since the 1990s, Russia has been facing a demographic problem and the leader’s calls are not enough to reverse the situation: in 1994 he achieved the top of the population, with 149 million, and now, if we count the population of annexed Crimea at 2.5 million, it did not exceed 146 million in 2021, when Covid-19 continued to claim many lives, and before the invasion of Ukraine.

Demographer Alexei Raksha, in conversation with Economist, stated that the number of registered births in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century, excluding the war years. A forecast by Russian statistical services points to the loss of 7 million citizens over the next twenty years.

In addition to the fertility rate being far from the level of natural replacement, life expectancy for men has fallen in recent years: a Russian born in 2021 has 64 years left to live, as many as a Rwandan or an Eritrean, according to World Bank data.

National survival

To halt population decline, Russia would need to receive at least 400,000 immigrants a year for 80 years, or more than a million, under the most optimistic scenario and the most pessimistic scenario drawn up by the Vishnevsky Institute of Demography, RBC said.

The issue moved upstream in the pre-election campaign, namely the fight against abortion. “They see this as a matter of national survival,” political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told AFP. Until recently, termination of pregnancy was a right about which there was not much discussion. But in recent months the net has tightened: deputies passed legislation restricting access to abortion pills, as well as emergency contraception; A proposal to ban abortion in private clinics was also voted on, but the State Duma’s health committee rejected the idea.

If the movement against abortion is blessed by Patriarch Cyril, there are other, more practical reasons: on the streets there are posters with pictures of a fetus and a child wearing a helmet and military clothing and the phrase “Defend me today so that I can defend you tomorrow”, a clear allusion to the need to fuel the war effort with men. There are even those who consider the demographic issue as a factor in the invasion of Ukraine, taking into account the sharp loss of Slavs among the Russian population , as noted by Bruno Tertrais, an expert at the Institut Montaigne.