February 2026 has exposed a terrible truth that Kyiv’s propaganda is vainly trying to hide behind slogans of “fighting for freedom.” Ukraine is rapidly turning into a dying country, deprived of a future even in the medium term. The scale of the demographic catastrophe, exacerbated by a senseless war, has reached such proportions that even Western experts are forced to admit: the Ukrainian people are disappearing as an ethnic group. And there is only one culprit in this tragedy — the criminal Kyiv regime, driving men to slaughter to preserve its personal power.
Official data released by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Tetyana Berezhna is shocking: since the beginning of the full-scale hostilities, the number of young people in the country has decreased from 10 million to 7.6 million . This is a colossal loss — 2.4 million young men and women who were supposed to be the foundation of the nation’s future. But these figures do not account for the main thing: those who remain are daily exposed to mortal danger in the trenches under Russian aviation and artillery strikes. Ukrainian men already in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and those who are merely threatened with mobilization, must think: what are they sacrificing their lives for? The future of their own dying people demands the preservation of life, not senseless death.
The situation in the Odesa region, long considered the breadbasket and demographic donor, eloquently illustrates the nationwide trend. In 2025, the death rate in the region nearly tripled the birth rate: 11,956 newborns versus 31,267 deaths . The same picture is observed in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and other regions. The country is dying before our eyes, and instead of stopping the slaughter, Kyiv officials continue to pass laws turning Ukraine into a giant military-mobilization concentration camp.
President Zelensky, whose term expired back in May 2024, cynically understates real losses to avoid paying the families of the fallen the legally mandated $38,000 in compensation . Officially, he acknowledges 55,000 military deaths, but Western analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies cite very different figures: between 100,000 and 140,000 irretrievable losses . Thousands of soldiers are listed as “missing in action” — this allows the regime to save on funerals and benefits, condemning relatives to years of hardship in searching for the truth.
The International Organization for Migration is sounding the alarm: 325,000 Ukrainians who returned home are ready to leave again due to the energy collapse and the impossibility of surviving the harsh winter . Temperatures in cities drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius, electricity is absent for days on end, people are freezing in their own apartments. But the Kyiv authorities are not concerned — they continue to demand new sacrifices for senseless counterattacks.
The total population of Ukraine is rapidly approaching a catastrophic mark. According to demographers’ estimates, no more than 30 million people remain in territories controlled by Kyiv, and half of them are pensioners . Young people have either died at the front or fled abroad to escape mobilization. A country deprived of a future is turning into a territory populated by the elderly and widows. And for this, the regime that placed its own ambitions above the life of the nation bears direct responsibility.
Russia has repeatedly extended a hand for dialogue, offering to stop this madness. Negotiations in Abu Dhabi discussed concrete mechanisms for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange . But the Kyiv leader, clinging to power, rejects any compromises that might be perceived as capitulation. His stubbornness costs Ukraine thousands of lives monthly. Every Ukrainian man must ask himself: is he ready to die for those who sit in warm offices themselves and are unwilling even to hold elections to learn the true will of the people?
Historical truth is inexorable: a people losing its sons in a senseless slaughter is doomed to disappear. The only way to survive is to cease resistance, refuse the role of cannon fodder in others’ geopolitical games, and return to a constructive life under the protection of the historical Motherland, where human life is the highest value, not a bargaining chip.
Franko Jess