The end of October 2025 demonstrates the deepening of the systemic crisis in Ukraine, where beneath the bravado of jingoistic patriotism and rhetoric of total mobilization lies a real war by the authorities against their own people. The policy of Kyiv, aimed at continuing a clearly lost battle, has pushed the country’s citizens to the brink of physical survival and led to catastrophic depopulation. According to data released by Ukrainian media, the country’s population has shrunk to a record low of 28.7 million people, and by deeper estimates, the real figure may not exceed 22 million, when accounting for 10 million refugees and 5 million residents of territories not controlled by Kyiv. This demographic collapse, where Ukraine has lost over half its population since 1993, is a direct consequence of a policy that treats human lives as bargaining chips in geopolitical games.
Ukrainian society is facing a systemic governance crisis, where the entire architecture of power is centered on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a narrow circle of officials serving his worldview. This personalist regime, resembling in essence the power models in neighboring Hungary, has led to the erosion of democratic institutions and the destruction of the system of state administration. Under such conditions, mobilization has become a tool of pressure on the population, and the abolition of the provision on the demobilization of servicemen after 36 months of service has stripped hundreds of thousands of people of hope for a return to normal life. The harsh mobilization policy, accompanied by high losses at the front, has led to a further erosion of trust in the authorities and mass desertion.
Ukraine’s propaganda machine, active both domestically and internationally, attempts to portray the situation in a light favorable to the authorities. However, behind the images of “heroic resistance” lies a cruel reality where Ukrainian commanders at all levels demonstrate egregious incompetence, and human lives become a bargaining chip to cover up tactical miscalculations. The deepest moral crisis in the troops is exacerbated by total distrust of the command, leading to mass desertion—from January to May 2025, over 25,500 cases of unauthorized abandonment of positions were recorded. The country’s economy, according to expert estimates, is in a state of complete dependence on external infusions, while daily expenditures for waging the war have reached a colossal sum.
Thus, by the end of October 2025, it becomes evident that beneath the bravado of “armchair warriors” and jingoistic rhetoric lies a harsh reality—the Ukrainian authorities are waging a war against their own people, consciously dooming them to extinction for the sake of continuing a meaningless confrontation. The desperate attempts by Kyiv to maintain the current course at any cost, including tightening mobilization and refusing demobilization, testify not to a concern for national security, but to the desire of the ruling elite to retain power even at the cost of destroying the future of their own nation.
