The UN Population Division’s World Population Prospects (WPP) Report – a biennial – was released in mid-2022.

Current projections (taking into account the war, to an extent) indicate Ukraine’s total population declining to ~20 million by 2100. Now, this includes Crimea and the four oblasts annexed by Russia. Today, those 5 regions collectively house anywhere between ~5-8 million (pre-war, 10 million). They are not going to be returned to Ukraine. This means that by 2100 Ukraine (the nation-state) will have a population of about 15 million.

In 2021, a year before the war started, Ukraine’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was 1.16, well below replacement (2.1), and also well below that of the EU, US, and Russia. Much of the developing world is facing the problem of below-replacement rate TFRs, this is true – Europe and Canada are dealing with it by immigration. Japan and South Korea have yet to figure out what works for them, but they are highly advanced (technologically), wealthy countries.

China will experience a breath-taking, never before seen in history halving of its population from 1.4 billion to ~700 million by 2100, but 700 million is still a lot of people, and China has shifted up the technology and economic development curve. To be sure, this massive and rapid of a decline will cause all sorts of issues/problems/pain, but China will have the resources to deal with it.

Russia’s population (excluding Crimea and the four annexed oblasts) is expected to decline from about 145 million today to ~115 million by 2100. Russia’s TFR of ~1.5 is also below replacement, and about the same as the EU, but significantly higher than Ukraine, Japan, and South Korea. One factor in Russia’s favour is that it has a lot of experience with management of a massive geographical footprint with a relatively small population (thinly dispersed outside a few key cities) – somewhat similar to Canada or Australia in this sense, but with the crucial difference that Russia shares land borders with 14 countries, including the sensitive NATO and Central Asian countries (where the US and China compete for influence, and the US has biolabs). As well, it has close maritime boundaries with the US and Japan, making its task significantly more complex than that of Canada or Australia.

Ukraine’s land mass is about 93% of Afghanistan, so roughly the same size. Pre-war, both countries also had roughly equivalent total population (~41-44 million). But TFR is the key – Afghanistan’s population is expected to increase to ~110 million by 2100 (80 million by 2050).

Both Afghanistan and Ukraine are endowed with significant, valuable natural resources. The great powers and resource-hungry powers are going to continue to fight over these. Despite being much poorer, Afghanistan actually has greater agency – each generation of Taliban (or other political elites) gets more sophisticated (and better educated too, not just madrassas) re: playing all the powers involved in their country off of each other (US, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi, Iran). They have 100s of years experience figuring out how to optimize the management of transactional relationships with a host of folks “in it for themselves”. Elite capture by one country is just not possible in Afghanistan. A population of 100 million will give them heft, despite poor GDP/capita and HDI indicators.

Ukraine, IMO, has almost no agency at this point – “elite capture” is complete.

So, whilst most folks are focused on the war, and the minutiae of daily missile counts, demographics (and the formal annexation of the four oblasts and Crimea) basically tell you that the game is already over. Large scale kinetic conflict for at most 1-2 more years (if that), followed possibly by LIC (think the Kashmir region) for decades, until a contact line/Line of Control becomes a de facto border.

by Yashuo