Recent Forced Migration and Demographic Trends of Endangered Areas of Ukraine.

Recent geopolitical circumstances in the area of the eastern Ukrainian-Russian border have resulted in intense forced migrations of the Ukrainian population into and out of the territory of Ukraine. According to estimates by the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration, about 13.5 million people participated in the wave of refugees and exiles, i.e., 30% of the total population of Ukraine (May 2023). Migration movements (external and internal) caused by the war showed a distinct spatial (regional) differentiation of certain forms of forced migration with regard to the main corridors, dynamics and scale of population displacement. The largest share of war migration in Ukraine refers to refugees and asylum seekers in the European area (8.2 million), and a smaller part to the internally displaced population who replaced their pre-war residence with that in the free territories of Ukraine (5.3 million) (UNCHR, 2023). Standard analytical demographic approach was based on a list of 14 threatened areas (territories) and selected indicators of the overall and natural population movement. Selected indicators and data pointed to the negative pre-war demographic trends of the threatened areas, above all to the level of natural and total depopulation and specific regional demographic relations that are a consequence of the unevenly successful transition-reform period after independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]