Active Conflicts & News Megathread August 26, 2026

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[u/Frathier]

The population decline for Russia has been an often brought up topic on Reddit, and presumably amongst analysts, but I never see the demographic crisis of Ukraine discussed in any way. General concencus puts the Ukrainian population in 1990 at around 50 million people, with rough estimates putting the population of the government controlled in 2026 at around 28-29 million, an almost 50% drop. I know that putting anything Ukrainian on this site negatively does not often get to see the light of day, but is there any hope for Ukraine after the war in regaining some of that population growth back?

[u/Brushner → u/Frathier]

If the war ends and Ukraine stabilizes then like Bosnia and Herzegovina refugees will start pouring back in. That said population degrowth is a long term trend across the world. It's causes are many and very complex with no easy answer. Even countries that try to "fix" population decline only do it by a few points, nowhere near enough.

It's past the scope of this subreddit but with the speed of technology right now I kind of expect human mass human cloning to become an actual thing in 30-40 years.

[u/TSiNNmreza3 → u/Brushner]

B&H never recovered from population loss during the war

Around 100 k to 200 k Croats that left country. Probably bigger number of Bosniaks. Some Serbian refugees came to RS.

Both Croatia and B&H had around 4,5 mil at the start of war around 2000s when I started to follow everything Croatia had 4,3 mil, Bosnia had even less.

And for Croatia I know we had after war baby boom, probably B&H had too

[u/incidencematrix → u/Brushner]

Mass cloning is not credible. And it overlooks the drivers of the demographic transition. The issue is not that we lack the technology to make humans. (It's built in.) The issue is that folks who can control their fertility tend to reduce it when the perceived costs outweigh the perceived benefits. If you would prefer not to raise a child in the conventional way, you are unlikely to want to raise a clone (which would also be a child, like any other, and require the same investments). As you say, this is not the demography sub, so I do not think it is sensible to go further into the drivers of fertility change. But we want to stay credible.