Russia and Ukraine are facing long-term depopulation, and the only obvious response to this challenge is the acceptance of higher levels of migration, primarily from Central Asia. After the war ends, both countries will have to reassess their demographic situation and may need to make a fundamental shift in their approach by beginning to challenge anti-immigrant sentiment. It is entirely possible that Russia and Ukraine will have to compete not only with each other, but also with the EU, which faces similar demographic challenges, for migrant labour. Russia risks losing this competition.

Summary

• Demographic decline has been persistent in Russia and Ukraine over the past 40 years. It has been driven by low fertility, chronically high mortality among working-age men, and an ageing population. The underlying causes of these trends emerged during the Soviet period.
• One of the few instruments for offsetting demographic decline is migration.
• In the early post-Soviet period, Russia became a destination country for migrants, partially offsetting depopulation. However, it ultimately shifted to a restrictive migration policy, to the detriment of its demographic outlook.
• Ukraine never succeeded in achieving a sustained inflow of migrants. A modest increase in the mid-2000s did not stabilise the situation, and the crises that followed only intensified population outflows from the country.
• Migration from Central Asian countries could become one of the foundations of demographic and economic sustainability for both countries.
• Ukraine, by virtue of its potential European integration and the scale of investment in its post-war reconstruction, could become a more attractive destination for migrants.
• There is a possibility that Russia and Ukraine will have to compete not only with each other, but also with European countries, which are also experiencing demographic challenges and are simplifying their visa regimes for people from Central Asia.

Introduction

Russia and Ukraine exhibited similar demographic trajectories even before the war began. For both countries, depopulation became a persistent long-term trend. Despite measures taken by the authorities to encourage higher fertility, including various forms of support for families, they have so far failed to achieve a significant reversal in demographic trends. Current demographic projections for both countries provide no grounds for believing that the situation will improve.

From a global perspective, Russia and Ukraine are not unique. Both countries, alongside the Baltic states and other countries in Eastern and Southern Europe, form part of a broader European tendency of persistent depopulation. The main structural drivers of this trend are a prolonged decline in fertility and an ageing population.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has intensified these trends. Around 7 million Ukrainians fled the war and settled mostly in the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, opposed to Vladimir Putin’s policies and seeking to avoid mobilisation, found refuge in neighbouring countries. During the fighting, both Russia and Ukraine lost hundreds of thousands of dead, and more than one million were injured.

After the war ends, both states will have to make the transition back to a peacetime economy, and one of the key challenges will be a shortage of labour. One way of addressing this problem could be through migration from other countries. The most likely source of migrants is Central Asia, given its long-established historical ties with both countries and its demographic potential.

Persistent depopulation

The populations of Ukraine and Russia have been declining steadily since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The decline has been most dramatic in Ukraine, where, according to official data, the resident population fell by more than 20 per cent between 1991 and the beginning of 2022, from 51.6 million to 41 million.¹ Over the same period, Russia’s population decreased by 1.8 million, from 148.3 million to 146.4 million. Excluding the population of annexed Crimea, the decline amounted to 4.3 million people.

Demographic processes are characterised by inertia: developments today are often shaped by events that affected previous generations. By the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union had completed its transition to the two-child family model, including in republics with a substantial Muslim population. The crude birth rate remained stable in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) at around 15 per 1,000 people over the following 20 years, while in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR) it gradually increased from 15 to 17 per 1,000 people.

The stabilisation of fertility marked the beginning of population ageing, reflected, among other things, in an increase in the crude death rate from 8–10 per 1,000 people in the mid-1960s to 10–12 per 1,000 people by the 1980s. The slowdown of the Soviet economy, which also began in the 1960s, had a negative effect on fertility in the European republics of the USSR. Attempts in the 1980s to stimulate population growth were unsuccessful. By the first half of the 1990s, the crude birth rate in both Russia and Ukraine had fallen below 10 per 1,000 people.

The combination of declining fertility and rising mortality gave rise to the so-called ‘Russian cross’ in which death rates exceed birth rates. Almost simultaneously, both countries entered a period of continuous natural population decline: Ukraine in 1991 and Russia in 1992.

A turning point emerged in the 2000s. However, while Russia’s crude birth rate had risen to 13.4 per 1,000 people by the mid-2010s, Ukraine’s did not exceed 11.5 per 1,000 people. At the same time, mortality continued to increase in both countries, reaching a peak of more than 16 deaths per 1,000 people by the mid-2000s. In Russia, this trend was temporarily interrupted between 2012 and 2016. However, this was not the result of systemic change, but rather of the population’s age and sex structure: during this period, a relatively large cohort of women entered their reproductive years.

While crude birth and death rates explain natural population change in the short term, they do not capture long-term demographic trends. A more accurate measure of a population’s reproductive potential is the total fertility rate (TFR), which represents the average number of children a woman would hypothetically give birth to over the course of her life. To maintain a stable population, TFR needs to be approximately 2.15.

From the first half of the 1960s and for the duration of an entire generation (25 years), the total fertility rate in both countries remained slightly above 2. However, in the 1980s it began to decline sharply, falling below 1.2 in Russia and 1.1 in Ukraine by the 2000s.

Economic reforms and the stabilisation of social conditions in both countries during the 2000s led to a decade of rising total fertility rates. By the mid-2010s, the TFR had exceeded 1.5 in Ukraine and had almost reached 1.8 in Russia. It then began to decline again.

When assessing mortality trends, it is important to consider changes in male life expectancy at birth. Against the backdrop of a stagnating Soviet healthcare system and widespread heavy drinking, male life expectancy declined sharply in both countries, falling in Russia from 63.67 years in 1960 to 61.71 years in 1985, and in Ukraine from 67.39 to 64.61 years over the same period.

The anti-alcohol campaign of 1985–1987 contributed to a temporary increase in male life expectancy at birth, but the subsequent collapse of the Soviet system interrupted this trend and further worsened the situation. In the 1990s, male life expectancy fell to 57.4 years in Russia and 61.2 years in Ukraine. It did not begin to recover until the 2000s. By 2019, it had reached 66.8 years in both countries. Thus, over the past 60 years, male life expectancy has, on the whole, been maintained rather than increased.

Fertility and life expectancy trends between 2020 and 2025 were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During this period, the total fertility rate fell to around 1.0 in Ukraine and 1.4 in Russia.

Population ageing

The age structure of the population is an important factor in assessing a country’s economic prospects. One of the main determinants of economic growth is the share and number of people of working age (18–65 years). The proportion of young people (under 30), for example, helps to predict how successfully an economy is likely to adopt new technologies over the next 20–30 years. Population ageing, in turn, increases the ‘demographic burden’ on the working-age population: as life expectancy rises, the economy must allocate greater resources to pensions and healthcare for older people.

Over the past 35 years, the populations of Russia and Ukraine have aged significantly. The median age in Ukraine increased from 33.2 years in 1990 to 41.5 years in 2022, while in Russia it rose from 32.2 to 39.1 years. This reflects declining fertility and increasing life expectancy among older age groups. In 1990, children under the age of 18 accounted for 25.8 per cent of Ukraine’s population and 27.1 per cent of Russia’s. By 2022, these shares had fallen to 17.9 per cent and 20.4 per cent, respectively. Over the same period, the proportion of people aged 65 and over increased from 12.0 per cent to 17.6 per cent in Ukraine, and from 9.9 per cent to 17.7 per cent in Russia.

According to demographic projections by UN experts, population ageing will continue in both countries over the next 25 years.² The process is expected to be considerably more pronounced in Ukraine, where the median age is projected to reach 46.6 years by 2050, compared with 41.7 years in Russia. Between 1990 and 2022, the share of the population under the age of 30 declined by around one-third in both countries, falling from 44.4 per cent to 33.1 per cent in Russia and from 43.2 per cent to 29.7 per cent in Ukraine. According to the UN’s projections, which are based on pre-war data, this share will change little in Russia by 2050, declining to 31.6 per cent, but will fall markedly in Ukraine, to 21.7 per cent.³

Projections

According to the medium variant of the demographic projections in the UN’s World Population Prospects 2024, Russia’s population will decline to 140 million by 2046. The high variant projects an increase of around 500,000 people, bringing the population to 146 million, while the low variant projects a decline to 131.8 million. The UN’s estimates are broadly consistent with those of Rosstat, allowing for differences in the baseline population. The UN projections start from a population of 147.8 million, while Rosstat uses 146.1 million. Under its medium variant, Rosstat projects that Russia’s population will stand at 138.8 million by 2046.

Rosstat’s and the UN’s projections for the working-age population differ substantially. Under Rosstat’s medium variant, the number of people of working age (defined as 16–60 for women and 16–65 for men) is projected to decline by 5 million, from 84.7 million to 79.8 million. The UN’s projections, by contrast, indicate a decline of between 10.5 million and 12 million people.⁴

Both Rosstat and the UN assume that Russia will continue to experience net inward migration. According to Rosstat’s projections, Russia’s natural population decline will amount to 12 million people by 2046. At the same time, Rosstat estimates that the country’s total population will decline by 7.3 million between 2024 and 2046, implying net immigration of around 5 million people over this period. Under the UN projections, Russia’s population will decline by 7.8 million over the same period. Without migration, however, the decline would reach 15.7 million, implying net immigration of approximately 8 million people.

The projections for Ukraine produced by UN experts and by the Institute for Demography and Life Quality Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine⁵ differ considerably. According to the latter, Ukraine’s population will decline by more than 22 per cent between 2024 and 2046, from 35.3 million to 27.5 million. The UN projects an 11 per cent decline over the same period, with the population falling from 40.8 million to 32.3 million.

It is evident that the UN experts relied on pre-war estimates and did not take into account the decline in Ukraine’s population following the outbreak of the war, which resulted from emigration and the loss of a substantial part of the country’s territory. This also explains the difference in the projections for the working-age population. While the UN projects that this group will decline from 26.2 million to 22.7 million people, the national projection anticipates a fall from 26 million to 15 million.

These projections present the authorities in both countries with significant challenges, such as dealing with labour shortages, sustaining economic growth, and supporting older people through the social welfare system. One of the highest policy priorities over the coming decades will be the active recruitment of migrants. There is no doubt that this challenge will be considerably more acute for Ukraine. The war has destroyed much of the country’s social and economic infrastructure, while the existing agreement with the European Union gives Ukrainians access to the EU labour market. Given the substantial gap in wage levels, the EU is likely to attract an increasing number of young Ukrainian workers.

Government measures

The authorities in both countries attempted to stimulate population growth in the mid-2000s. In 2004, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Concept of Demographic Development to 2015, which was amended in 2006. Russia adopted a comparable document, with a planning horizon to 2025, in October 2007.

Following Viktor Yushchenko’s election as President of Ukraine, child-related benefits were substantially expanded and diversified. In 2005, the one-off payment at the birth of a child was increased almost twelvefold to 8,500 hryvnias (around US $1,600 at the exchange rate at the time, or more than 20 times the monthly minimum for subsistence, which stood at 423 hryvnias). By 2008, families received around 12,200 hryvnias for their first child, up to 25,000 for their second, and up to 50,000 for their third. These measures proved effective, with fertility increasing by 10 per cent. However, this rise was short-lived, as it largely reflected the timing of postponed births that had already been planned rather than an increase in completed family size.

In Russia, the most effective instrument for encouraging higher fertility was the maternity capital programme – a one-off payment provided following the birth or adoption of children, which can be used only for specified purposes, such as purchasing housing or financing children’s education. The programme was introduced at the beginning of 2007, before the adoption of the country’s overall demographic strategy. The initial payment amounted to 250,000 roubles, 23.5 times the average monthly wage in 2006.⁶

Initially, maternity capital was available only upon the birth of a second or subsequent child. Since 2020, families have received around two-thirds of the total entitlement following the birth of their first child. In 2025, the total value of maternity capital slightly exceeded 912,000 roubles, 10.4 times the average monthly wage in 2024.

Thanks to the maternity capital programme, by 2024 Russia had recorded 2–2.5 million more births (7–9 per cent) than had been projected. Around 15 million families have benefited from the programme. The initiative increased the total fertility rate by approximately 0.15 children per woman and raised the share of households with two or more children by around 10 per cent. The programme’s impact was significantly greater among lower-income households, for whom maternity capital represented a relatively more valuable form of support.

At the same time, empirical modelling suggests that, as in Ukraine, the positive trend was driven primarily by the earlier timing of births that had already been planned. Leading Russian demographers have emphasised that the maternity capital programme did not alter the fundamental determinants of fertility. In Sergei Zakharov’s assessment, the programme produced a short-term compensatory effect, mitigating the decline of the 1990s, but it did not generate a sustained increase in fertility or reverse the long-term downward trend – particularly in large cities and regions characterised by a post-industrial family model (marked by equal partnership rather than a division between a ‘breadwinner’ and a ‘homemaker’, as well as later and more deliberate parenthood).

According to experts, the decision in 2020 to allocate the majority of maternity capital to the first child was a mistake. The decision to have a first child is shaped primarily by psychological and cultural attitudes, individual values, and other non-economic factors; to date, no clear influence by economic factors has been established. As a result, maternity capital in Russia is being provided to families who would most likely have had a first child regardless of the programme. At the same time, many of those who received most of the benefit for their first child are reluctant to have a second without more substantial state support.

Despite all the measures introduced to support fertility, the Russian authorities have been unable to reverse demographic trends: both population size and population reproduction continue to decline.⁷

Migration

The only way to prevent rapid population decline in the short term is to attract migrants. Despite this, until the late 1990s the authorities in both Russia and Ukraine did not view migration as an instrument of demographic or economic policy. Migration trends developed largely without state intervention. 

During the Soviet period, the direction and scale of migration flows were determined by the development of industries that required additional labour. Until the mid-1970s, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) was a major destination for migrants from other Soviet republics, while the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR) was a net exporter of population. Over the following decade, the former’s attractiveness to migrants declined sharply, whereas the latter experienced growing inward migration, a trend reinforced by the rise of nationalist sentiment in other Soviet republics.

The late 1980s and the early post-Soviet years were marked by large-scale population movements along ethnic lines, from which Russia and Ukraine emerged with different migration trajectories. Russia gradually became a consistent destination for migrants, as its economy remained relatively attractive to migrant workers despite the difficulties of the transition to a market economy. From the mid-2000s onwards, net migration amounted to 250,000–300,000 people annually, allowing the country to offset a substantial share of its natural population decline.

As of 1 January 2026, nearly 3 million migrant workers were officially registered in Russia, more than 80 per cent of whom came from Central Asian countries. By contrast, the number of officially registered migrant workers from Ukraine and Belarus did not exceed 10,000.⁸

By contrast, Ukraine remained a net exporter of migrants until 2005. During the 1990s, Russia was a major destination for Ukrainian migrants, including both ethnic Russians and people seeking work, for example in the oil and gas sector in northern Russia. Other key destinations for labour migration included Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Spain. According to 2008 estimates, 4.5 million Ukrainians were working abroad. The phenomenon became so widespread that a specific term – zarobitchany – emerged to describe Ukrainian migrants working overseas. Net migration into Ukraine during the 2000s remained modest and was insufficient to halt population decline.

Central Asia as a potential source of labour

At first glance, Central Asia appears to be the most obvious source of labour for both Russia and Ukraine. If they choose to do so, both countries could attract a sufficient number of migrants from the region.

Between 1990 and 2024, the population of Central Asia grew from 51.2 million to 82.2 million. According to UN projections, the region’s population will exceed 100 million by 2039 and approach 115 million by 2050. Central Asia is expected to retain a relatively young age structure, while its working-age population will increase from 51 million to 71 million. At present, however, the region’s labour market is not keeping pace with population growth: there are insufficient jobs in Central Asian countries, while employment opportunities abroad offer higher wages.

At the same time, the economies of Central Asian countries are expected to continue growing and will themselves require additional labour. If it is assumed that labour demand in each country increases by 1 per cent annually over the next 25 years, the number of workers employed in these economies would rise by 29 per cent over that period. On this basis, the number of working-age people in Central Asia who could potentially be available for migration would be substantially lower than suggested by the UN projections alone.

Russia remains the principal destination for migrants from Central Asia, although its attractiveness has been gradually declining because of tighter migration legislation and rising xenophobia. For example, the number of Uzbek citizens working in Russia fell from 1.2 million at the beginning of 2024 to 698,000 by the beginning of 2025. Labour emigration from Tajikistan is also declining. According to the latest data from the country’s Ministry of Labour, the number of migrant workers leaving during the first half of 2024 fell by 15 per cent compared with the same period in 2023, from 454,257 to 387,987 people.

In recent years, Ukraine has not been regarded as a promising destination for labour migration from Central Asia. According to data from the State Migration Service of Ukraine, between 2017 and 2020, 143,000 citizens of Kazakhstan, 20,000 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, 21,800 citizens of Tajikistan, 38,300 citizens of Turkmenistan, and 89,900 citizens of Uzbekistan entered Ukraine. However, these statistics do not account for those who subsequently left the country and do not provide a breakdown by purpose of entry.

At first glance, it may appear that Ukraine will not compete for migrants. However, the return to a peacetime economy and the country’s reconstruction will require additional labour, while a number of EU member states and the United States are expected to invest in Ukraine’s economic recovery. In this context, it is reasonable to assume that Ukraine’s attractiveness to migrant workers from Central Asia will increase. Potential integration into the European economic area, together with large-scale investment in post-war reconstruction, is likely to generate strong demand for labour. At the same time, the fragility of the post-war political settlement may delay the adoption of the necessary policy decisions. As is often the case in post-crisis situations, however, delay would be particularly costly.

In recent years, EU member states and the United Kingdom, which are also facing demographic challenges, have joined the competition for migrant labour. According to Eurostat, as of 2023, residence permits in the EU were held by 84,900 citizens of Kazakhstan, 53,500 citizens of Uzbekistan, 32,700 citizens of Kyrgyzstan, 18,700 citizens of Tajikistan, and 6,000 citizens of Turkmenistan.

In 2025, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan signed a memorandum of cooperation on labour migration. At the end of 2024, Uzbekistan signed an agreement with Germany to facilitate the entry of skilled workers in the agriculture and healthcare sectors. In 2023, the European Union and all five Central Asian countries adopted a roadmap for deepening cooperation.

As the demographic situation in developed countries continues to deteriorate and they move to liberalise visa regimes with Central Asian states, Russia and Ukraine risk losing their attractiveness as destination countries. In the future, economic factors and the social climate in the host country are likely to become the primary considerations for prospective migrants.

Conclusion

Current demographic projections for Russia and Ukraine point to a sustained decline in overall population and, more importantly, to a rapid contraction of the working-age population. Even if net inward migration continues, Russia will face labour shortages over the coming decades, both under the more optimistic national projections and under the more pessimistic estimates produced by the United Nations.

For Ukraine, the situation is even more severe. The war has significantly worsened the country’s demographic outlook: large-scale emigration, a total fertility rate below 1.0, and excess mortality among the working-age population have reduced Ukraine’s population by approximately 10 million people over the past three years, leaving it at around 31.5 million. Under these conditions, the country’s ability to recover economically without an inflow of migrant labour is open to serious doubt.

For both countries, migration from Central Asia could become a foundation of demographic and economic sustainability. Achieving this, however, will require changes in both policy approaches and public attitudes. If Russia and Ukraine recognise this, they are likely to enter into competition for migrant labour. The country that succeeds in this competition will be better placed to establish a solid foundation for sustained economic growth.

Endnotes

1. Unofficial pre-war estimates indicated an even sharper population decline, reflecting the large number of migrant workers who were permanently residing outside the country. From 2014 onwards, these estimates excluded the annexed Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. ↩︎
2. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 2024 Revision (medium variant). ↩︎
3. Ibid. ↩︎
4. The UN projections provide a breakdown of the population by single year of age, but not by sex. Therefore, for this estimate, the age groups 16–63 years (lower-bound estimate of the decline) and 20–70 years (upper-bound estimate) were used. Rosstat’s projections provide only an aggregate estimate of the working-age population, without a breakdown by age or sex. ↩︎
5. This projection was used by the Ukrainian government in developing the country’s Demographic Development Strategy to 2040. ↩︎
6. The payment was subsequently indexed, with the exception of the period from 2016 to 2019. Between 2008 and 2014, indexation lagged inflation by 1–1.5 percentage points, while from 2021 onwards it has been adjusted in line with the previous year’s inflation rate. ↩︎
7. Russia has more than a dozen different child benefits and allowances for pregnant women. However, their value is unlikely to provide a meaningful incentive to have children. Rather, they should be viewed as a form of social support for families, as the birth of a child sharply reduces per capita household income. For example, the average unified child benefit amounts to around 15 per cent of the average wage, while the one-off birth allowance is equivalent to roughly one quarter of the average monthly wage. ↩︎
8. This apparent paradox is explained by the definition of the category ‘labour migrant’, which in Russian statistics is based on the number of issued work permits. A substantial share of Ukrainian and Belarusian citizens work in Russia outside these mechanisms and are therefore not captured by these statistics. Officially, more than 1 million Ukrainian citizens and around 124,000 Belarusian citizens are currently residing in Russia. Belarusian citizens are not required to obtain special work permits, as their employment status is effectively equivalent to that of Russian citizens. A similar regime applies to Ukrainian citizens, but only if they hold refugee status, temporary asylum, a temporary residence permit, or a permanent residence permit. ↩︎

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the NEST Centre.