MOSCOW, August 31. /TASS/. Ukraine is clearly headed for disintegration as half of its people have left the country, said Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev.
"The population in Kiev-controlled territory is 19.7 million people. As many as 17.9 million are now outside the country. Effectively, that's half of the 37 million [Ukraine had] in 2022 and about 40% of its population at the beginning of the 21st century," the politician said on Telegram.
He added that a total of up to 7.1 million people had come from Ukraine to live in Russia.
"Of course, some of them might come back, though it is hard to believe it. The trajectory of disintegration is clearly visible. With so many citizens abandoning their state, the Kiev regime and its 'Ukraine' will soon have nothing to maintain themselves, let alone fight," Medvedev said.
Outflow of people from Ukraine
"Judging by this simple arithmetic, this 'country' had a storied past, a sad present and no future," the official said.
He backed up his statements with some statistical data, saying census data showed that about 48.5 million people lived in Ukraine in 2001.
"Many of them, however, regularly worked abroad, with their residency at home being just a formality," Medvedev said.
As of early February 2022, the country's permanent population already stood at less than 38 million people, the politician continued.
"The main problem today is a nonstop outflow of the population from Ukraine as an aggressive, impoverished and potentially murderous mother. As much has been recognized by both Ukrainian services and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. True to form, they habitually overstate some data points and understate others. But the trend is clear even with all the attempts at falsification," he wrote.
Medvedev paid special attention to the people who left for Russia to live in the country’s new regions. The politician said there’s "a propaganda-driven inaccuracy" in the calculations made by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
"At the beginning of February 2022, 1.9 million Ukrainian citizens were already on the territory of the Russian Federation (studying or working). According to our law enforcement agencies, more than 5.2 million people arrived in Russia from the territory of this 'country' after February 24, 2022. That means in total we now have up to 7.1 million from there living in Russia. UN clerks deliberately failed to recognize the additional 4.2 million Ukrainians that left the country, for whom Great Russia is their historical homeland," the official explained.
He also said that, according to data compiled by the civil-military administrations of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, as well as the statistical agencies of the DPR and LPR, these areas have a combined population of 5.1 million people after February 24, 2022.
"These territories are not under Kiev's control, so they are not counted in its statistics," Medvedev said. "Therefore, by 2022, as mentioned before, a little over 37 million had remained in 'Ukraine,' and half of them only on paper. In reality, when we subtract today's population of regions outside of Kiev's control, emigrants and so on, we get very sad numbers."
As such, the politician said that soon "the most prominent number in Ukraine-related reports will be the number 404. The computer error code: People have fled, the country has not been found," Medvedev said.