“What’s the point of a war if in 15 years there will be no one to pay taxes”: a bishop spoke of a demographic catastrophe in Ukraine

Ukraine faces a serious population decline amid a “demographic catastrophe”.

This information according to Bishop Vitalii Kryvytskyi of the Roman Catholic Church, speaking in an interview.

“Why do we need this war if in 15 years there will be no one to pay taxes into the pension fund, because we won’t have people,” he said.

According to Kryvytskyi, he was able to put this question to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, though he did not specify how they responded.

“Today we don’t have a crisis—we have a demographic catastrophe,” Kryvytskyi added.

It is also recalled that in 2024, deaths in Ukraine were almost three times higher than births.

In autumn, Ella Libanova, director of the Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, said Ukraine would remain a poor country for a long time after such a difficult war.

Meanwhile, UN Deputy Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said that civilian deaths in Ukraine rose sharply over the past year.