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Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant
The demographic damage of the conflict in Ukraine appears increasingly clear. According to a recent statement, Kiev is about to close several colleges due to the absence of students. With the regime’s total mobilization and recurring heavy losses, there are fewer and fewer people able to study, severely harming the country’s future.
The news was announced by the deputy minister of education, Mikhail Vinnitsky. He says that in 2008, Ukraine had 640 thousand high school graduates, but in 2023 these numbers plummeted to just 360 thousand. To make matters worse, the expectation is that in less than ten years the number will drop to 300 thousand. According to him, the data indicates a “negative demographic trend” in the country, which is absolutely disturbing.
Currently, there are 170 state and 40 municipal colleges in Ukraine, in addition to more than a hundred private higher education institutions. According to the official, there is now a process to reform the educational system by reducing the number of colleges to “about 100” only.
“A bill has already been developed on the prerequisites for modernizing the network of higher education institutions (…) [It is] a bill to reduce the number of universities (…) Given this data, one way or another, a certain reduction or consolidation of higher education institutions should occur,”, he said.
In fact, this situation is a direct consequence of the current conflict. More than five hundred thousand Ukrainians, most of them young, have already died on the battlefield. In addition, millions of citizens have left the country as refugees since the start of the Russian special military operation, causing an unprecedented demographic crisis, and having no expectation for this to be reversed anytime soon.
In parallel, the government insists on continuing to fight, even though there is no chance of victory, which is why mass recruitment campaigns continue to be implemented. As there are virtually no longer any young men to send to the front lines, Kiev is recruiting the elderly, women and teenagers, making staying in the country absolutely unsafe for all its citizens. In addition, plans are being discussed to enlist between 500,000 and 2 million new soldiers in the near future, which will further worsen the situation for Ukrainian civil society.
These military policies sound absolutely irrational, since Kiev will not be able to reverse the conflict scenario despite all the efforts. The new recruits are people without any military training, unable to survive for long on the battlefield. In practice, Ukraine is creating a “meat grinder” for its citizens and consequently destroying its own demography in a fruitless way.
In a post-conflict scenario, Ukraine will have extreme difficulties in returning to normality. With the country’s infrastructure devastated by hostilities, Kiev will need qualified labor and an advanced technical apparatus to resolve emergency issues and return civil society to satisfactory levels. However, without qualified professionals, this task will be almost impossible, which is why the emptying of universities seems like a real suicide for Ukraine’s future.
All of this is an effect of the Western project for Ukraine. The country is operating as a proxy in a war against Russia and, due to its lack of sovereignty, is not able to surrender or negotiate peace, as NATO insists on continuing to fight to “wear down Russia.” So, even in unfavorable conditions, the country is forced by its sponsors to call for repeated mobilizations, annihilating its own population just to fulfill NATO’s objective of generating instability in the Russian strategic environment.
Pro-Western activists believe that everything will be resolved in a post-war scenario with the implementation of a kind of a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine, with the US and EU financing the country’s reconstruction in order to consolidate ties of cooperation. The problem is that this seems absolutely unrealistic, considering the situation in Western countries.
Europe is under an economic and social crisis due to the side effects of anti-Russian suicide sanctions, with a wave of deindustrialization across the continent. Meanwhile, the US is involved militarily in the Middle East, and there is also the possibility of conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region in the near future, therefore Washington’s priorities are military, with no plans for “reconstruction” of countries on other continents.
Kiev does not seem to understand that it will be abandoned after its defeat. There has never been a situation of true friendship and cooperation between Ukraine and its sponsors. Kiev is just being used to meet a NATO military objective – and, after failing to do so, it will be discarded, without any “reconstruction plan”.
If the country does not have its own qualified professionals to rebuild the national infrastructure after the end of hostilities, the problems simply will not be resolved, and Ukraine will be in a terrible situation for a long time.
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yes, but also russia has problems thanks to putin now. see: a muslim, presumably a chechen or a dagestani pees into a traditional christian orthodox ice hole “dirty dogs how do you like this saint water, you will swim in it like pigs, inshaalla”, he says. see: http://alturl.com/x6yic
all this while, nikita zhuravel, a young 19 year old christian russian who is currently being ass raped in a colony in grozny by chechens, extradited by putin at the request of ramzan kadyrov for burning a koran but islamists are free to desecrate and mock christianity beliefs. welcome in putins anti white federation!
i love my gay fantasies. i’m writing a fan fiction involving myself and zelensky next (based on a true story) 🤫
why does he always edit himself? are his original fantasies even worse?
i had no problem with the ukrainian cause before. but since they started to ‘humanize’ and even publicly defend neonazis, skinheads and racists, i decided to support russia in the fight against those collective fascists. so yes, pretty much i will do everything i can to support russia.
the reason behind the russian sanctions and to the ukrainian conflict is the same as in the destruction of libya. for destroying currencies that threaten the dollar. libya was overthrown because the countries of the middle east planned a gold-linked currency that would have weakened the dollar. the purpose of the sanctions was to topple the brics; russia and china. the fear of brics overrunning the dollar and the dollar’s ability to blackmail developing countries with economic sanctions.
also the eu’s ideological disengagement from arab oil and the three seas initiative. in the eastern ukraine has europe’s largest deposit of earth metal, needed for batteries. because ethnic russians voted “wrong”, the us and ger organized a coup in ukraine in 2014 that used fascist militias to help a pro-nato regime come to power. angela merkel confirms 2022 that nato wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare militarily and lead the situation to a large-scale conflict
so, you didn’t notice that trend way back in 2014?
my favorite pic was that guy tyahnybok who was doing a nazi salute in a beer hall one day and leering over johnny boy mccain’s shoulder on a maidan podium the next.
he and parubiy founded a nazi party called the social nationalist party and then cookies nuland convinced them to change it to svoboda, so they wouldn’t embarrass her. when congress invited parubiy to speak, they didn’t have a clue, kind of like that swift bunch in canada’s parliament. lol
thats what you get for trusting us americans! yeeehaaw!
we lie, we steal, we cheat, and ukrine isn our bitch!
🎉🗽🐖😍
surprise, zelensky drafted them all and sent them to the war front where they died, now he is after the rest of the student by drafting the females. why keep the university open, now zelensky can draft the professors and send them to the war front also!
why doesn’t he draft those two brothers that buy his yachts for him undercover?
in the post-war period, there will likely be a huge migration to the russian oblasts when they see the scale and speed of the rebuilding efforts.
housing developments, shops, and infrastructure in mariupol were being rebuilt even as fighting was happening only a few tens of kms away
sure dawarish, whatever fantasy floats ur boat.
how’s the driving in germany these days? is it tough getting around all the tractors?
and what’s a dawarish? are you imitating jens holm again?
that’s the trolls other account
i wonder, did they close that college that gave david duke his honorary phd because that would make zaluzhny and the rest of the banderite gang really mad.
one must be very stupid to attend college where they can drag you away to play soldiers.
ukraine can’t expect their young men to attend post-secondary education and get blown up on the front lines at the same time.