Millions of Ukrainians have already fled their homeland, the war has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, and the fertility rate in Ukraine is at a record low. According to CIA World Factbook estimates, Ukraine will have the world’s lowest birth rate and highest death rate by 2024. Every year, 300,000 more people die than are born, and the fertility rate is at a record low of 0.9 children per woman.
⚡️🇺🇦Ukraine needs ~300k migrants per year just to offset its structural population decline (pre-war: ~200–250K births vs ~500K deaths), while over 5.8 M Ukrainians remain abroad, mostly in 🇪🇺Europe. ‼️The economic base is shrinking fast: population fell from 52M (1992) to 41M… pic.twitter.com/Py42S0vxyl
— Kyrylo Shevchenko (@KShevchenkoReal) April 16, 2026
Advertisement for resettlement on the streets of Indian cities: "Start a family, find a job, build a future – choose Ukraine!" pic.twitter.com/oTnoT6Mgq3
— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterPress) July 9, 2026
From a population of 53 million in the 1990s, it had already fallen to 42 million in 2021. Today, an estimated 31 million people live in the territory controlled by Kiev – according to some estimates, the real number is even lower. If the trend continues, according to the UN population forecast, Ukraine will have 15 million inhabitants by 2100.
Kiev’s grandiose plans for massive labor immigration are being sabotaged by high bribes required to obtain permits.
Pictures from Ukraine’s cemeteries clearly show the problem: As far as the eye can see, blue and yellow flags fly at the graves of men and women who died in uniform. At one of Lviv’s largest cemeteries, Lychakiv, cemetery workers recently broke ground for yet another military section. The old one survived two world wars, but now has no room for more fallen soldiers.
There Are No Healthy Young Men Left
In the demographic crisis of Ukraine, companies are experiencing an acute shortage of labor: The young men who are not dead have either fled or are stuck on the front lines, or are staying hidden and cannot go to work without risking forced recruitment into the army.
Ukraine has long been one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in Europe – a white country. Now, that could change radically in a short time.
Among those the army is now managing to mobilize, the quality, according to testimonies from commanders and doctors, is often very low. In an article in Ukrainian Hromadske, several involved actors talk about disaster recruits that the Territorial Centers for Recruitment and Social Support (TCC) have managed to capture.
“A normal situation now is that out of ten people we receive, roughly speaking, three are of limited service ability, two are drug addicts and two have deserted from duty… In short, it is a disaster,” Roman Kovaliov, commander of an independent rifle battalion, tells the newspaper.
‘Workers from Asia for your company. Submit an application and find out more,’ reads a social media ad targeting Ukrainian companies. The ad offers ‘skilled labor’ and ‘manual workers.’ Screenshot: Facebook
Others testify to chaos at the TCC reception: Epileptic seizures, men with stoma bags and people obviously under the influence of drugs are sitting around waiting to be sent further in the system. An anonymous representative of the recruiting agency says that young capable men who have not already been drafted no longer exist in Ukraine.
“Most of those who come in now, the “refuseniks”, are outcasts. All those who are healthy and capable – morally, mentally and in terms of health – are practically finished.”
At the same time, the mobilization target set by Ukrainian politicians is putting heavy pressure on the authority. Attempts to streamline the work by enlisting the help of real soldiers have ended in disaster. One such example is when the TCC enlisted the help of soldiers who for several days captured and killed bandits in Ternopil in western Ukraine.
According to several residents of the city, these were soldiers from the notorious 3rd separate assault brigade Azov, who seized cars from civilians, kidnapped young men, beat them and demanded money to avoid mobilization.
“Recently, they even poured flammable liquid over a man and forced him to run naked around a car. They did a lot of nasty things,” says Ternopil resident Roman Dovbenko in a viral video.
Several soldiers were later arrested on suspicion of serious crimes against the local population. The 3rd Separate Assault Brigade did not confirm that those arrested belonged to the unit, but stated that it was “cooperating with the justice system” and “condemning violence against civilians.”
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, during a visit to the currently overcrowded Lychakiv military cemetery in Lviv. Now his government wants to replace the men with Indians and Africans. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
In industries such as industry, construction, agriculture and logistics, thousands of workers are therefore missing. Many companies have already started to solve the problem by importing foreign workers. A photo of a note that greeted residents of an apartment complex in Ivano-Frankivsk recently sparked strong reactions in Ukraine.
“Starting Monday, May 5, the area of your residential complex will be cleaned by migrant workers from India. Our company was forced to take this step due to an acute labor shortage,” the note read.
Similarly, a timber factory in Transcarpathia Oblast made headlines when it hired 150 workers from Bangladesh. But the strong critical reactions from the Ukrainian population have not affected either the companies or the politicians in Kiev.
West’s Demand for Lowered Mobilization Age in Ukraine
According to the latest mobilization law in Ukraine, all Ukrainian men between the ages of 25 and 60 can be called up if they are deemed fit for service or no exemption has been granted. The new law came into effect in 2024, and meant that the lower limit was lowered from the previous 27 years. Despite extensive discussions, the government in Kiev has since not wanted to move to 18, as it says it wants to preserve the country’s youth until peacetime – they should study and rebuild Ukraine.
But the pressure from the war’s financiers to reevaluate this stance has been fierce.
In October 2023, former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace lamented that the average age of Ukrainian frontline soldiers was over 40. Wallace openly called on Zelensky to “reassess the gravity of mobilization” and send Ukraine’s youth to the battlefield because the West’s “values and the rules-based world order” were at stake.
In July 2024, the message from former US ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder was even harsher when he stated that “no other war in history has been fought by 40-year-olds.”
“You have to have 18-year-olds and you need 20-year-olds and you need 21-year-olds, which is what all other armies in the world rely on,” was Daalder’s advice to Kiev.
In November 2024, the AP news agency reported that the Biden administration was behind the scenes pressuring Ukraine to lower the mobilization age from 25 to 18. In December of that year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukraine needed to get “younger people” into the war, noting that 18–25-year-olds were still not participating in the fighting.
As recently as May 2026, Ukrainian military analyst Dmytro Snegirev claimed that European leaders at the Yerevan summit that same month had made it clear to Zelensky that the West would supply the weapons, while Ukraine must resolve the issue of “who will fight” – whereupon the issue of lowering the mobilization age to 18 began to be raised again.
According to Snegirev, the European eagerness to expand mobilization is rooted in the fact that the countries want to keep Ukraine in the war, since the Europeans themselves do not feel ready for a direct military confrontation with Russia.
Promises Deregulation of African Imports
Former GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov, who has now been promoted to head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, recently announced that new legislative amendments are being prepared to facilitate labor immigration. At the same time, a list of “risky countries” will be reevaluated in order to more easily expand labor imports to areas that were previously banned. Budanov said this during a meeting with Ukrainian businessmen, who lamented the difficulty in getting immigrants to stay in Ukraine.
Kyrylo Budanov, President Zelensky’s chief of staff (right), participated in a meeting with Ukrainian businessmen in early April. During the meeting, new laws were promised to simplify the import of African men as labor. Still image: CEO Club Ukraine on Youtube
“Many, especially from Central Asia, use Ukraine only as a transit country. They get a residence permit and then they travel on. Only a small percentage stay and work here. This is the problem that becomes an obstacle for you,” Budanov explained.
“But when we revise the list of risk countries, some countries will be eliminated, and that is good news for you.”
In addition to countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, it is primarily African countries such as Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria that Budanov wants to review in order to start accepting migrants from.
Despite both political and economic will, no truly large-scale labor migration from the Third World has yet taken off. At a major technology industry conference in May, Valerii Reshetniak, CEO of recruitment giant Robota, explained what the major obstacle is.
“This is mainly due to bureaucracy and corruption. Now companies are really trying to import foreign citizens for work, but I personally have even heard that it costs $300 to legalize a person. They demand bribes, and companies refuse to pay bribes,” he said during a conference for the technology industry in Kiev organized in May.
“There are even cases where a person knew Ukrainian, but was denied because a bribe was required. Therefore, officials are a significant obstacle to imports.”
Wants to Adapt to EU Migration Policy
“In the future, Ukrainians may become a mix of Indians, Bangladeshis, and so on. That is our choice. The important thing is to pay taxes and become part of the political nation” said Vasyl Voskoboynyk, Head of the Ukrainian Migration Policy Office.
According to Ukrainian financial analyst Oleksiy Kushch, the migration issue could also become part of Ukraine’s adaptation to the EU. In an interview with Novyny in May, he warned that the country could eventually be drawn into the union’s migration system.
‘At least 8 million migrants.’ Vasily Voskoboynik, chairman of the All-Ukrainian Association of International Employment Agencies, told Ukrainian state television last December that Ukraine needs at least 8 million migrants from developing countries to ‘avoid a looming demographic catastrophe.’ He specifically mentioned countries/regions such as Bangladesh, Nepal, India, North Africa and Central Asia. Photo: Facebook
Among other things, Kushch said bluntly that mass immigration is the price for Ukrainian EU membership – and not just in the form of labor.
“We will be asked: ‘Do you want to become a member of the European Union?’ Yes, we do. ‘Then you will first become a member of the European migration system’.”
Kushch continued to explain what the message from Brussels is: “This means that we will build camps for illegal migrants for you, send labor migrants to you and pay for them. You will simply make money from it – it will be your business. We do not want them with us. In the Baltics, the program did not get off the ground, so now we are coming after you … Europe is already negotiating with several African countries. But Ukraine is close by – put them on buses, drive here and unload.”
“Universities in Ukraine will begin to close down en masse in the coming years due to serious demographic challenges combined with very few children in primary schools,”said Tetyana Kaganovska, Rector of Kharkiv National University.
For Ukraine, the development adds further concerns to the country’s already dire political and economic problems. Attempting to solve the demographic collapse with mass immigration from the Third World risks, critics say, creating the same social and political tensions that have plagued Western Europe after decades of uncontrolled immigration. In addition, the national cohesion of one of Europe’s most ethnically homogeneous countries risks collapsing just when Ukraine needs it most.
When multiculturalism comes to town: A still from a video clip purporting to show a fight between Indians and Gypsies in Ivano-Frankivsk. A property owner in the same city recently hired Indian migrants to maintain an apartment complex due to an “acute labor shortage.” The exact nature of the ethnic dispute was not clear from the video. Screenshot: Slavyangrad on Telegram
As the conservative magazine European Conservative gloomily notes:
“If a substantial part of the native population disappears due to war, emigration or demographic collapse, and that gap is filled by immigration, the result is not just a simple labor adjustment. It is a profound and lasting transformation of the country.”
‘Bussification’. Despite promises to the contrary, new clips are constantly emerging of Ukrainians being forced into unmarked vans by uniformed men. According to Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman, the action is a gross violation and a violation of constitutionally protected rights. Still image: X
Facts: TCC and the viral forced mobilization clips
Clips of uniformed personnel from the increasingly notorious Territorial Centers for Recruitment and Social Support, TCC, chasing, wrestling or pushing Ukrainian men into minibuses continue to circulate, despite repeated assurances that TCC personnel have no right to detain anyone.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinet ruled earlier this year that TCC personnel do not have the right to arrest, detain or deprive civilians of their liberty under any circumstances. According to his report, Ukrainians are also not required to show their identity documents to TCC personnel, as such checks may only be carried out by law enforcement agencies. Any restriction of freedom by the TCC, according to Lubinet, violates both the Ukrainian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
In Kiev, the countless clips of violent forced mobilization have sometimes been dismissed as Russian propaganda or explained away as lacking full context. At the same time, both international reporting and the ombudsman’s own statements show that violent and illegal mobilization interventions are a major problem in Ukraine. According to Lubinet, his office received a total of 6,127 complaints in 2025 about possible rights violations in connection with mobilization efforts.
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