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Nearly 9.5 million Ukrainians leave country — Zelensky

According to the UN press service, the country’s population decreased by eight million people between February 2022 and fall 2024

MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. Some 9.5 million Ukrainians have left the country, Vladimir Zelensky told Fox News.

"We need 9.5 million people who <…> [are] abroad <…> to come back to Ukraine just to live and to build their country," he said.

Since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine has faced serious demographic problems. According to the UN press service, the country’s population decreased by eight million people between February 2022 and fall 2024. In late October 2025, Ella Libanova, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Demography and Social Studies, said that, according to 2024 research, the country’s population amounted to about 28 to 30 million people. Ukraine last held a census in 2001. At that time, the population was 48,457,000.

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