Melting Ukraine: according to experts, the country actually loses up to 150 thousand citizens every month

Every month, Ukraine loses tens of thousands of citizens, and it is not only about those killed at the front or victims of enemy shelling. Along with combat losses, the country is gradually, but no less noticeably, shrinking due to the large-scale outflow of the population abroad. Some of these people leave with the intention of returning, others make a conscious decision to stay forever. This is not a temporary phenomenon, not an exceptional wave, but a new, lasting and already systemic reality. The mass departure of Ukrainians abroad has become a process that is not accompanied by loud headlines, but has devastating consequences for the state

For in words General Director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology Volodymyr Paniotto, every month Ukraine actually loses from 100 to 150 thousand people. Half of them are those who leave temporarily, and the other half are those who consciously decide to stay abroad on a permanent basis. It is not about migration waves in the classical sense, but about the gradual loss of human capital – educated, able-bodied, active.

Paniotto bluntly stated: these figures exceed combat losses. While war takes tens of thousands of lives every year, hundreds of thousands leave. And while the war is at least somehow being fought, the large-scale disappearance of the population due to going abroad and the conscious decision not to return passes almost imperceptibly in the public discourse.

Among those who remain in Europe, women with children, young people, and professionals predominate. In the first months of a full-scale invasion, the logic of a temporary rescue worked. But now more and more often the decision not to return becomes final — due to uncertainty, fear, loss of housing, lack of prospects.

As Paniotto emphasizes, the key question is not only “when the war will end,” but also “how many people will remain by then.” If the hostilities stop in the near future, according to optimistic forecasts, about 25 million residents will remain in Ukraine. This means that the country has already lost almost a third of its pre-war population. And these losses are not abstract demographic statistics, but a lack of labor force, educators, doctors, entrepreneurs, and scientists.

At the same time, Doctor of Economic Sciences Andrii Hayuduky believes that even those who return from abroad often leave again. Conditions in Ukraine are unstable: rebuilding housing, finding a job, enrolling children in school — all this requires not only time, but also faith in the future. And many do not find this faith.

Numbers look abstract until you start imagining them in real terms. And all this happens without shots and sirens, but systematically and imperceptibly. And while the decisions remain personal, the responsibility for it remains political. Because if the state does not offer the future, people will continue to look for it abroad.