Ukraine faces demographic disaster amid war
Olena Bilozerska and her husband were planning to have children when hostilities broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The couple went to war and postponed having a baby. When Bilozerska completed her service, she was 41 years old, and doctors told her that her chances of getting pregnant were almost nil. This was reported by The Public with reference to CNN.
With the start of full-scale war, the birth rate in Ukraine has fallen sharply. At the same time, losses on the front lines are increasing, and millions of people have left the country and settled abroad. Leading Ukrainian demographer Ella Libanova called the situation a disaster. According to her, since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has lost about 10 million people due to death, emigration or residence in the occupied territories.
Libanova noted that the birth rate had been declining before, as in many European countries, but now it has virtually collapsed. The average birth rate in Ukraine has fallen to less than one child per woman. For comparison, this figure is 1.4 in Europe and 1.6 in the United States.
Bilozerka began the process of in vitro fertilisation. The doctors managed to obtain only one egg. After it was fertilised, the embryo was frozen at the Nadiya clinic in Kyiv, where about 10,000 embryos are stored. When Russia launched a full-scale invasion, she returned to the front, and the embryo remained in the cryobank.
Valery Zukin, director of the Nadiya clinic, noted that war has a devastating effect on fertility. According to him, the number of complications has increased, and genetic studies of miscarriages show a sharp increase in chromosomal abnormalities since the start of the war. Reproductive specialist Alla Baranenko also speaks of a deterioration in the quality of eggs and sperm, especially among soldiers returning from the front.
Casualties among the military are leading to an increase in the number of widows and orphans. According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, between 100,000 and 140,000 Ukrainians have died since the start of the full-scale invasion. Official statistics show that there are currently 59,000 children in Ukraine living without their biological parents, most of them in foster families.
Iryna Ivanova found out she was pregnant after her husband, Pavlo Ivanov, an F-16 pilot, was killed on 12 April 2025. Their daughter Justyna was born in December.
Since 2022, about 6 million people, mostly women and children, have left Ukraine and registered as refugees abroad. Most of them have not yet returned. Ella Libanova noted that the longer the war lasts, the less likely they are to return. She also emphasised the risk of losing skilled personnel.
After three years of waiting, Bilozerska returned to Kyiv and decided to use the frozen embryo. At the age of 46, she gave birth to her son Pavlo. Doctor Alla Baranenko, who worked with her, noted that in twenty years she had helped deliver 5,000 babies, but this story was the one that stuck with her the most.
