Ukraine death toll surge caused by Russian invasion, not the alleged US coup of 2014
The USA did not stage a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 and is not to blame for the depopulation of Ukraine, as the post we are analyzing wants to portray. It is true that Ukraine has had the highest death rate and the lowest birth rate in the last year, however, as the analyses by the Ukrainian official institutions show, that occurrence is a result of the Russian invasion, not due to America. In the last two years, mortality has especially increased in the regions that are on the front line and that are frequent targets of Russian attacks
The USA did not stage a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 and is not to blame for the depopulation of Ukraine, as the post we are analyzing wants to portray. It is true that Ukraine has had the highest death rate and the lowest birth rate in the last year, however, as the analyses by the Ukrainian official institutions show, that occurrence is a result of the Russian invasion, not due to America. In the last two years, mortality has especially increased in the regions that are on the front line and that are frequent targets of Russian attacks
We analyze a Facebook post claiming America staged a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and has been responsible for the country’s depopulation ever since.
If the depopulation of Ukraine was the main goal of the US regime’s coup in Ukraine in 2014, then they certainly succeeded. Ukraine is first in terms of death rate and last in terms of birth rate in the whole world. Morbid, the post states.
Such a claim is not true. First, the USA did not carry out any coup in Ukraine in 2014.
The wave of demonstrations, civil disobedience, riots and armed conflicts known as Euromaidan broke out on the night of November 21, 2013, when Ukrainian citizens began protesting in Kyiv. The reason for the protests was the decision of the Ukrainian government the day before, to suspend the preparations for signing the Association Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. On the 30th of November, the government forces used violence against the protesters, which caused the protests to gain momentum and with that, over 1.5 million protesters joined.
On the 30th of March, 2012, the EU and Ukraine signed the Association Agreement. However, the agreement was not ratified, as Ukraine was instructed to work on the deteriorating democracy and rule of law in the country.
On the 21st of November, 2013, the Ukrainian government suspended the preparations for signing the Association Agreement by decree. The official reason for this move was that Ukraine experienced a decline in industrial production in the previous months. The government of Ukraine claimed that it will continue to prepare the agreement when the losses from the decline in industrial production are compensated by the European market.
The former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, attended the EU Summit held on November 28-29, 2013, in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the Association and Trade Agreement was supposed to be signed. However, the agreement was not signed.
A large number of global media outlets and international institutions and organizations portray the Euromaidan events as the biggest pro-European rebellion in the history of Ukraine.
According to Lviv historian Yaroslav Hrytsak,
This is a revolution of the generation that we can call modernist for Ukrainian independence. This is a revolution of young people who are very educated, people who are active on social networks, who are mobile and 90 percent who have college degrees but no future.
The West did not stage a coup in 2014, nor did it organize the protests. The demonstrations that began in Kyiv in November 2013 were a result of Ukrainians’ frustration with the former President Yanukovych, i.e. his last minute decision to change course and not sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU after seven years of negotiations. Russian pressure has halted the progress of Ukraine’s closer relationship with the EU.
What is happening in Ukraine now has nothing to do with any coup d’état from the West, it is a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in order to seize other parts of its territory.
Referring to a CIA report, the post further points out that depopulation is being carried out in Ukraine and that this country is first in terms of death rate and last in terms of birth rate in the whole world, and blames the United States for this. However, analyses state the opposite, that the Russian military invasion is to blame for the reduced population, not America.
Namely, it is true that Ukraine has the highest death rate and the lowest birth rate in the world, and this is stated in the report of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Kyiv Post reports. The report indicates that the death rate in Ukraine is 18.6 per thousand people, making it the highest in the world. Lithuania takes the second place in mortality with 15.02 per thousand, followed by Serbia with 14.9 per thousand. Russia is in ninth place with 14 deaths per thousand people.
In addition, the CIA report reveals that Ukraine has the lowest birth rate globally, with only 6 births per thousand people, placing the country at the bottom of the ranking (228th place). For comparison, the highest birth rate is recorded in African countries, and at the top of the list is Niger with 46.6 births per thousand citizens.
According to Opendatabot, citing data from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, 87,655 children were born in the first half of 2024 —a decrease of 9% compared to the same period last year. In contrast, 250,972 deaths were registered in the same period.
The birth rate this year has decreased by 1.5 times compared to the period before the full-scale invasion: 87,655 children in 2024 against 132,595 in 2021, the report states.
The birth rate remains critically low in the frontline regions: only 221 children were born in the Kherson region and 702 in Donetsk. Namely, not a single baby was registered in the Luhansk region in the first half of the year.
According to the state news agency Ukrinform, citing the Ministry of Health, Ukraine’s birth rate has been declining by about 7% annually since 2013, and the full-scale Russian invasion has made the situation even worse.
In 2023, an average of about 16,100 babes were born each month. Before the full-scale invasion, monthly births fluctuated between 21,000 and 23,000 , the Ministry informed, Kyiv Post reports.
The most deaths between January and June 2024 were registered in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (26,374), northeastern Kharkiv Oblast (17,999) and southern Odesa Oblast (16,085). All three regions are densely populated and their capitals are among the largest in Ukraine, although they also suffer regular Russian attacks, The Kyiv Independent reports, citing Opendatabot data.
Emigration and refugees is another key factor deepening Ukraine’s demographic crisis. Over 6 million Ukrainians remain abroad after they fled the country as a result of Russia’s full-scale war. Around 700,000 more people are expected to leave Ukraine in 2024-2025, adds The Kyiv Independent.
From the aforementioned, we can conclude that the USA did not carry out a coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 and is not to blame for the depopulation of Ukraine, as the analyzed post wants to portray. It is true that Ukraine has had the highest death rate and the lowest birth rate in the last year, however, as the analyses by the Ukrainian official institutions show, that occurrence is a result of the Russian invasion, not due to America. In the last two years, mortality has especially increased in the regions that are on the front line and that are frequent targets of Russian attacks.
Therefore, we assess the post as partially untrue.
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