The war has created one of the world’s worst demographic crises.
Ukraine now offers free sperm freezing to soldiers fighting Russia. The program will help families who want children, even if the soldier is killed or injured in combat.
– Our men are dying. The Ukrainian gene pool is dying. This is about the survival of our nation, says soldier Maxim to the BBC.
The 35-year-old soldier in the National Guard of Ukraine has frozen his sperm himself at a clinic in Kyiv. If he is killed, his wife can use the sample to have the child they have always wanted.
Private fertility clinics began offering the service for free in 2022. The following year, parliament passed a law regulating the practice and providing government funding.
“Our soldiers are defending our future, but could lose their own, so we wanted to give them that chance,” says MP Oksana Dmitrieva, who helped draft the law.
The program will also help with Ukraine’s demographic crisis. The country already had problems before the war, but the situation has become much worse due to many dead soldiers and millions of refugees.
The law was changed after protests, so that sperm samples are now stored free of charge for up to three years after a soldier’s death. Partners can use them with written consent.
Widows and orphans
Ukraine is facing a demographic catastrophe after four years of war. The birth rate has collapsed to less than one child per woman, while millions have fled the country.
– It is a disaster. No country can exist without people, says leading Ukrainian demographer Ella Libanova to CNN.
Libanova estimates that Ukraine has lost around 10 million people since the war began. This includes those who have been killed, have left the country or live in Russian-occupied areas.
The war has forced millions of Ukrainians to put their lives on hold.
Olena Bilozerska and her husband wanted to have children, but the war got in the way. When she left the military at 41, doctors said her chances of getting pregnant were almost zero.
– Soldiers live day by day. They are not planning anything for the future, Bilozerska tells CNN.
She underwent fertility treatment and had one embryo frozen. But when Russia invaded in 2022, she had to return to the front. The embryo remained in Kyiv.
Three years later, she returned and had her son Pavlus at 46.
Official figures show that 59,000 children now live without their biological parents in Ukraine.
Six million people, mainly young women and children, have fled the country.
