Kuleba: Ukraine needs migrants from Asia because of the mass outflow of young people

Ukraine may need to open its borders to migrants from Asia due to the massive outflow of young people and the deteriorating demographic situation, said former Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba.

According to him, the mass departure of Ukrainian youth aged 18-22 will lead to bad consequences for the state. Kuleba suggested that Ukraine risks remaining with a predominance of the elderly population. At the same time, Kuleba himself is considered to have hastily left the country after the government of Ukraine adopted a decree banning former diplomats from leaving.

"We will not have anything good (in the future) for the population. We are in a negative dynamic, we had it before the worst war in Europe. No one wants to give birth anywhere in the world anymore. We may have to open the country to migrants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, the Philippines and Vietnam," Kuleba said in a video posted on the telegram channel of the Ukrainian TV channel Novosti.Live».

The publication "Ukrainian National News" on Friday reported that the population of Ukraine has fallen to 28.7 million people. Later, Ukrainska Pravda reported that the number of applicants entering Ukrainian higher education institutions in 2025 has halved.

In August 2024, Vladimir Zelensky recognized the record outflow of population from Ukraine and announced the creation of a new ministry for work with citizens who left the country.

In April 2024, Ukrainian journalists, after analyzing the material of the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy on the country's demographic development strategy, reported that the birth rate in the country had fallen to the lowest level in the last 300 years. Former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in January of the same year stated that the population of Ukraine has decreased by 2.5 times compared to 2014.

Earlier, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Demography and Social Research, Ella Libanova, said that the country's population could reach a maximum of 35 million people by 2033. In her opinion, Ukraine will be able to return no more than half of the citizens who left the country.

The last official census of the population of Ukraine was held in 2001. According to its results, the population of Ukraine amounted to about 48 million people.