Sitting in a wine bar in Kyiv on a Saturday night, Daria, 34, opens a dating app, scrolls, then puts her phone away. After spending more than a decade in committed relationships, she's been single for a long time. I haven't had a proper date since before the war, she says.
Four years of war have forced Ukrainians to rethink nearly every aspect of daily life. Increasingly that includes decisions about relationships and parenthood – and these choices are, in turn, shaping the future of a country in which both marriage and birth rates are falling.
Millions of Ukrainian women who left at the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion have now built lives and relationships abroad. Hundreds of thousands of men are absent too, either deployed in the army or living outside the country.
For those women who stayed, the prospect of meeting somebody to start a family feels increasingly remote.
Khrystyna, 28, says it's noticeable that there are fewer men around. She lives in the western city of Lviv and has been trying to meet a partner through dating apps without much luck. Many, I would say most [men] are afraid to go out now, in this situation, she says, referencing the men of fighting age who spend most of their time indoors to avoid conscription.
Closer to the front line, many men on active duty are also shelving the idea of starting a relationship. Ruslan, a soldier serving in the Kharkiv region, knows the promises he can make are limited. Beyond visits once or twice a year, flower deliveries, and the odd phone call, he asks, what can I actually offer a girl right now?
The consequences of this disruption threaten to ripple far into Ukraine's future. Since the start of the invasion, the number of marriages has decreased sharply from 223,000 in 2022 to 150,000 in 2024. Birth rates have dropped even lower during the conflict, now standing at a record low of 0.9 children per woman. These trends are described as the social catastrophe of war by Oleksandr Hladun, a demographer at Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences.
Despite the challenges, some individuals like Olena, a 33-year-old policewoman, remain hopeful. She is currently freezing her eggs and plans to try IVF while considering her work and the country’s situation.
Ultimately, as Daria articulates, Planning a future feels fragile, almost naive. This uncertainty is painful, but it becomes a part of everyday life. I've come to accept that I might stay alone not because I want to, but because the war reshapes what feels possible.
