British News Agency

The NBU said that about 400,000 Ukrainians will move abroad by the end of the year, and this figure is expected to reach about 300,000 people in 2025. The bank predicts that the net return of migrants to Ukraine will begin only in 2026, assuming that "security risks will decrease and economic conditions will normalize within the forecast horizon."

The NBU said the downgrade in its forecasts was based on the deterioration of the situation in the energy sector, ostensibly caused by Russian airstrikes targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Moscow stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities in the spring in response to Kyiv's attempts to damage Russian oil refineries and depots using long-range kamikaze drones. Ukraine is imposing nationwide blackouts to address the growing lack of production capacity.

The Central Bank has argued that significant disruptions in Ukraine's energy system, including power outages, have negatively affected production processes, reducing economic activity and, thus, labour demand. This is further triggering migration.

The bank warned: "Even if economic conditions normalize, the return of migrants to Ukraine will be slow as they increasingly adapt to life abroad... Moreover, the slow normalization of economic conditions due to high-security risks will trigger emigration.".  However, he noted that the government could increase the attractiveness of returning to Ukraine for refugees by accelerating the reconstruction of housing and infrastructure and increasing the number of jobs.

According to the State Statistics Service, Ukraine's population was 40.98 million in January 2022, before the start of the conflict with Moscow. However, the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, an analytical centre, had previously claimed that the country's population had fallen to 29 million as of June last year. Olga Pishchulina, a leading expert at the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies, told Ukrinform last month that Ukraine's labour pool had decreased by 40% compared to 2021 when it was 17.4 million people.