According to the Statistical Service of the Government of Ukraine, the population of Ukraine, excluding the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, was 41.9 million in 2020. This means that about 19% of Ukraine’s pre-war population, roughly equal to the population of Washington State, has fled the country.
Russia has had its own mass emigration as a result of the war.
At least 419,000 people fled the country in the first half of 2022, according to Rosstat, Russia’s federal state statistics service, many of them traveling to former Soviet states that do not require visa approval for Russians, such as Georgia . In contrast, only 202,000 left the country in the first half of 2021.
Hit by this exodus and Western sanctions, the Russian economy has nevertheless defied the worst predictions, allowing many in the country to carry on with life as normal. However the effects of the war are biting below the surface.
More fled after Putin mobilized 300,000 troops from Russia’s wide pool of reservists in September, necessitating sending reinforcements to the front lines. By the end of the year, the population had declined to 555,332. 146.98 million to 146.42 million, state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported.
High-security prisoners convicted of serious crimes were recruited to fight in Ukraine by the Wagner Group, a private military company headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a longtime Putin ally.
As far as the course of the battle goes, the tempo has shifted wildly.
Before the invasion, Russia controlled about 16,000 square miles of Ukraine, rising to 62,000 square miles, about 27% of the country’s landmass, in the weeks after the invasion began on February 24, according to the study institute. War, a Washington-based think tank, according to Chart.
