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In Ukraine, the death rate is four times higher than the birth rate

In Ukraine, the death rate is four times higher than the birth rate

22 July 2026, 15:31

In Ukraine, the death rate is four times higher than the birth rate — The death rate in Ukraine is four times higher than the birth rate

In the first six months of 2026, 73,292 children were born in Ukraine, whilst 259,853 people died. The death rate is therefore almost four times higher than the birth rate.

This has been reported by the monitoring service ‘OpenDataBot’, citing data from the Ministry of Justice.

Compared with the same period in 2025, the number of newborns has fallen by 16 per cent. If we compare this with the first half of 2021 (the last period before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion), the birth rate has almost halved: at that time, 133,457 children were born over six months.

Currently, an average of around 12,000 children are born in Ukraine every month. Ten years ago, however, this figure stood at approximately 32,000. Boys are traditionally born slightly more often than girls — 51 per cent compared with 49 per cent.

The highest number of newborns was recorded in Kyiv — 8,352. This is followed by the Lviv region (6,617 children), Dnipropetrovsk (5,611) and Odesa (5,450). In the Rivne, Volyn and Zakarpattia regions, there are two deaths for every newborn.

In the Donetsk region, the number of newborns has fallen by a factor of three compared with the pre-war period — there are 19 deaths for every newborn; in the Kherson region, the figure is 14, and in the Sumy, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions — six.

In the first six months of the year, 259,853 deaths were also recorded in Ukraine — 4 per cent more than in the same period last year. The highest number of deaths was recorded in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — 28,386.

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