© Maxim Stulov/TASS
At some point, Soviet Ukraine acted like a magnet for those living in the USSR. When it collapsed, almost a fifth of its inhabitants found themselves dwelling in the Ukrainian SSR. The population of newly independent Ukraine began to plummet. From 52 million fixed in 1991, it decreased by 5 million in a decade, and another 5 million by 2014.
Having gained independence, the country had a huge economic potential and an educated population with lots of highly qualified specialists in various fields. Its reintegration with Russia because of their common mentality, religion, thousand-year history, culture, language, economic ties and common geopolitical interests, became a thorn in the West’s foot. Fearing a reincarnated Soviet Union, Washington got obsessed with containing Russia.
Back then, the American side saw fit to alter the republic’s political affiliation and reshape the Slavic identity of Ukrainians, making them Russia’s permanent enemy.
But in fact, the "Orange Revolution" and the "revolution of dignity" brought to power the current bloody clique that started to deliberately destroy the nation and turn the once flourishing republic into depopulated lands.
1990s and 2000s saw Ukrainians engaged in seasonal work hoping to get rich and live a good life in their native places, while present-day exodus has become massive in scale. Most are willing to link their future with a new host country. 7 to 9 million people have left Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, preliminary estimates alone suggest. The largest figure is provided by the UN Refugee Agency. Most Ukrainian citizens — 5 million — moved to Russia, followed by Europe’s Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. In Germany, they formed the bulk of immigrants who entered the country in 2022, exceeding 915,000 people. The fact that most of them are wealthy or highly qualified highlights the Ukrainian losses and the way Western countries profit from those.
Today, the US-led West has unleashed a war "to the last Ukrainian." Daily casualty states on the Ukrainian side amid the much-hyped "counteroffensive" are striking in their scale. At various junctions, the figure reaches a thousand people.
The offensive with such serious losses is clearly weakening the Ukrainian army and causing no joy with the people. The traditional late June Day of Friendship and Unity of the Slavs — Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians — sounds like biting irony today. It is them who die massively in the course of hostilities.
Even Western estimates have it that Ukrainian army’s overall death toll is about to reach 200,000 people. No allowance is being made for those wounded or captured, whose numbers have become much higher than before the counteroffensive began. Such a monstrous manpower expenditure is inherent in the armed forces’ total loss of efficiency. There will simply be no one left to fight.
Following Ivano-Frankovsk, Kiev and Chernigov, all-out mobilization was announced in Chernovtsy. Referring to the opinion of ordinary Ukrainian soldiers, the US VICE News agency claims that the Kiev regime's approach to the war is more like "the destruction of its own combat-ready and able-bodied population."
Optimists believe that the country's population does not exceed 30 million people, while pessimists are sure it has fallen to 20 million. Apart from that, one should take due regard of the growing natural population decline over constant stress, deteriorated medical care and material surroundings. The birth rate has hit a world anti-record, falling from about 1.2 to 0.7 during the conflict.
Such losses are incomparable even with the disastrous Great Patriotic War, when Hitler's Germany set itself the task of "conquering the living space" and destroying the "excess population" in the territory of Reichskommissariat Ukraine (RKU). The country lost 3.26 million civilians back then.
A WHO assessment voiced by Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky’ wife in an interview suggests that 20% of her fellow countrymen have become vulnerable to mental disorders, which the US estimates at even 30%.
According to official Ukrainian statistics alone, more than 45,000 Ukrainians were registered as disabled persons during the 10 months of the war last year.
At the same time, head of the National Assembly of People with Disabilities Valeriy Sushkevych says the real number is a lot higher, because issuing an official disability status during the war is next to impossible. That is, the number of those disabled may be a hundred thousand people over the past year in Ukraine.
Polls show that almost 80% of Ukrainians have close relatives or friends who were injured or killed during the war. Further on, this kind of scenario threatens them as a nation.
Unfortunately, the current head of Ukraine considers legalized marijuana "to help overcome pain", both physical and mental, the best way out. And yet, there is vehement suspicion that this issue hit the agenda not because of concerns for people's health, but because of considerable incomes this business may yield to the ruling clique.
An exhaustive estimation of the current state of affairs was given by head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Reuters quotes him as saying the following: "What I had said was this is going to take six, eight, 10 weeks, it's going to be very difficult. It's going to be very long, and it's going to be very, very bloody."
