Ukraine is already decimated, with a huge loss of population. It will take them decades just to build back to where they were before the war started. From George Beebe at responsiblestatecraft.org:
Ending the conflict sooner will give Kyiv a chance to rebuild. Until then, its prospects for a thriving, democratic state are diminishing.
No matter how the war ends, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created the very outcome he most wanted to prevent: a thriving anti-Russian, pro-Western democracy, armed to the teeth with American weaponry, destined at a minimum to become a de facto ally of Washington, if not an official member of the NATO alliance.
Or so it is thought in Washington and other Western capitals. But, with the sole exception of Ukraine’s deepening and quite understandable revulsion toward Russia, it is much closer to wishful thinking than to reality.
Let’s begin with the “thriving” part, as it is the foundation upon which the other elements of this narrative rest. According to the last Soviet census, Ukraine had a population of nearly 52 million people prior to its independence in 1992. Its population dropped significantly over the next three decades, as the economic and psychological disruptions of the USSR’s dissolution combined to shorten life expectancy during the tumultuous 1990s, and Ukraine’s birthrate plunged to nearly the lowest in all Europe.
Factor in Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula with its 2.5 million inhabitants nearly a decade ago, and Ukraine’s population had declined to less than 40 million by 2022.
“They are an impatient lot”, he said, “they paint the world as they would like to see it and insist that it is true. But they never have the patience or fortitude to ever actually see it through. They hide from their own shadows and possess no end-game besides fostering their own illusions. Victory, therefore, shall be ours.”
Ho Chi Minh