The Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Studies has predicted what Ukraine’s population will look like in 10 years. It warns of negative prospects, writes hromadske.

Ella Libanova, a scholar and director of the institution, believes that the population of Ukraine within the 1991 borders will range from 26 million to 35 million people in 2033.

“It’s going to be bad. Much worse than anyone can imagine,” she said during a national telethon.

The scientist also expressed the opinion that the population of our country will not return to the level of 45 million people.

“This is a long conversation about the potential for demographic growth, about the old population, about losses due to low birth rates, about losses due to too high premature mortality, especially of men, and migration, which has become the main driver of demographic dynamics today-it’s bad, very bad,” said the director of the Institute.

In July of this year, the monitoring platform Opendatabot reported that the birth rate in Ukraine has decreased by 28% since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

According to the Ministry of Economy, there are about 6.2 million Ukrainians outside Ukraine who have left the country due to the full-scale invasion of Russia.