Ukraine mother final

“I feel I owe it to people on the frontline to stay, raise kids and tell them about Ukraine,” Ivanna Didur, a mother, told our correspondent Luke Harding as she explained her decision to stay in Kyiv with her growing family. ‌Subscribe to The Guardian on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/user/theguardian?sub_confirmation=1 She described having a baby in wartime as a “patriotic act”. “We are not leaving unless Russia is going to be on the doorstep,” she said. ‌ On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, with about one birth for every three deaths. According to the UN refugee agency, 5.9 million Ukrainians have fled the country, many being women with children. ‌ Before the war, Ukraine’s population was 41 million. The estimated figure today is between 30 million and 32 million, excluding citizens living under Russian occupation. If the low birthrate continues, demographers predict that by 2050 only 25 million people will live in Ukraine. ‌ Ivanna said that many Ukrainians were struggling financially and felt they “could not afford” to have children. Many are also put off by the lack of security. Ivanna tapes up the windows on her son and daughters’ bedrooms, to protect them from flying glass. ‌ She and her husband, Anatolii, try to give their children as normal a life as possible. Their eight-year-old, Anna, does acrobatics, while Andrii, five, plays football and attends scouts. ‌ The couple have bought power banks, so their flat stays warm during blackouts caused by bombing. “I don’t think Ukraine is losing. In Donbas, the Russians are taking micro-steps,” she said. ‌ Moscow’s army now occupies 20% of the country, including Crimea, which was seized in 2014. It has taken 1.2 million dead and wounded for it to advance 30 miles in the Donbas region, about the same number of casualties that the US suffered during the entire second world war. Ukrainians have held on to hope and are bringing up children despite the risks. To learn more listen to @todayinfocuspod for a special episode looking at the impact of four years of war and what could happen next. #russia #ukraine #ukrainewar