The demographic situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is deteriorating: the aggressor state, Russia, continues a deliberate policy of ethnocide aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity and replacing the local population with Russians and migrants from Central Asia, the North Caucasus, and other regions.
The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense stated this on its website, Ukrinform reports.
"The aggressor state Russia has brought the situation of the Ukrainian population in Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories to catastrophe. Birth rates are extremely low, while mortality is extremely high, and these fiHURes far exceed even the average for Russia itself," the HUR said.
It was noted that in 2025, the natural population growth rate in the occupied part of Donetsk region was –9.9‰, which is 2.4 times worse than the overall fiHURe in Russia.
As the HUR emphasized, the scale of demographic losses caused by Russia on the enslaved territories of eastern Ukraine is highly revealing: over ten years, the population of Donbas has decreased by nearly one third. "If in 2001 about 7.37 million people lived in Donetsk and Luhansk regions together, then by the beginning of 2024 only about 3.75 million remained there," the intelligence service said.
