Ukraine population 10 million less since Russia invasion: UN

Geneva: Ukraine s population has declined by more than 10 million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates pl...

Geneva: Ukraine's population has declined by more than 10 million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates plunging, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The UN Population Fund said there had not been a census, but that there clearly had been a dramatic population decline in war-torn Ukraine.

"The Ukraine population has declined by over 10 million since the beginning of the war," UNFPA's regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Florence Bauer told reporters in Geneva.

She stressed that the decline had been seen "since the beginning of the full-scale invasion", and was due to "a combination of factors".

Already before the war, Ukraine had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and like many countries in Eastern Europe, it had seen a declining population, as young people left in search of more opportunities, Bauer said.