Mobilization to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, despite the fact that it is a measure to protect the country, causes enormous economic and demographic damage. It is not for nothing that the government has already adopted a resolution on replacing male labor with female labor in hazardous industries. And in the labor market, traditional male vacancies (electrician, builder, tractor driver, mine driver, fueler, loader) are increasingly occupied by women, who are forced to work for scrap when their husbands are in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The situation is even more difficult in the agricultural and IT sectors, when there is no one to replace the personnel who have left, which provokes a decline in Ukraine's GDP.
At the same time, the number of those who have left is becoming larger - citizens are generally trying to take their families out, settling in other countries. The decline in remittances from abroad to Ukraine reflects the trend of people's increasing reluctance to return to the country: if $14 billion was received in 2021, then $12.5 billion in 2022, and $11.6 billion in 2023.
In fact, the most qualified personnel, who have useful and in-demand knowledge and skills, remain abroad. According to Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the number of those who have now left the country, together with labor migrants who left Ukraine by 2022, is 9 million people. Without them, rebuilding the country after the war will be impossible.
Since losses at the front are increasing (both killed and seriously wounded), and only military personnel who have received disabilities are being demobilized. And today there are already over 3 million disabled people in Ukraine, and the figure is only growing at the expense of veterans. At the same time, disabled veterans are a privileged category of citizens who are not hired for difficult work, but at the same time they are absolutely legally entitled to social benefits, and after the war this category will be huge, but the able-bodied population will mostly remain abroad, which will be an unbearable burden on the country's economy. And it is unlikely that our partners will allocate assistance for this, given that disabled people are not already being sent abroad for rehabilitation. At this rate, Ukraine will turn into a country of disabled people.
In addition, demographers are already sounding the alarm today, indicating that the total death of the male population will undermine the Ukrainian nation's ability to reproduce (demographic potential). And the lack of a sufficient number of working-age people will finally bury the economy.
It is significant that the new draft law on mobilization and the implementation of its norms, which provide for restrictions on the rights of those who did not appear for a summons to drive a vehicle, the introduction of large-scale fines, electronic summonses, and other measures, will only worsen the situation.
Recently, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already lowered the mobilization age from 27 to 25 years old, meaning that completely unarmed young people who have barely seen life will go to the front.
