Ukraine will need foreign workers to rebuild its postwar economy in addition to Ukrainians returning from abroad, according to Presidential Office Chief of Staff Kyrylo Budanov.Budanov argues that the country’s demographic decline has left it with no alternative.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.Speaking to students at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Budanov said Ukraine’s shrinking population has created a demographic burden on the workforce that cannot be solved simply by increasing labor productivity.He said that Ukraine had a population of about 52 million people in 1995-96, which has since declined to “significantly fewer.”“There are significantly fewer of us now. I don’t want to scare anyone, but significantly fewer,” he said.According to him, labor shortages are already being felt even while the country remains at war.Budanov said Ukraine would need to pursue two parallel approaches: encourage citizens who left the country to return and recruit qualified specialists from abroad.“We will have to bring our citizens back and attract specialists from different parts of the world. There will be no other option,” he said, as reported by local outlet RBC-Ukraine.More than 5.7 million Ukrainians have fled abroad due to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion as of early June, according to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights.Despite the demographic challenges, Budanov said he believes the trend can eventually be reversed.