Statistics Service intends to estimate population of Ukraine by late 2025 – head

The State Statistics Service intends to estimate the population of Ukraine by the end of this year, such an estimate will not replace a census, but it will be the best that is currently possible, said head of the State Statistics Service Arsen Makarchuk in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

"We find ourselves in a situation where we do not know how many people live in the country. We have to look for other approaches to calculating the population. We have to conduct this assessment de facto from scratch, when there is no single reliable source that can provide us with data for the assessment," he noted.

Makarchuk recalled that until 2022, when calculating the population, the State Statistics Service relied on census data from 2001, superimposing data on the natural and migratory movement of the population: how many died, how many were born, how many moved.

According to him, in conditions of full-scale Russian aggression, such an assessment using the classical method is impossible, because there is a gap since 2022 that cannot be closed.

"This especially applies to travel abroad, because for some time documents were checked, but the data was not entered into the database. This, unfortunately, is an objective fact," the head of the service added.

At the same time, he noted that there is other data that can be used in the complex to conduct such an assessment.

"All this data by itself does not say anything, but if we build a model that will help us bring them all together at one point, mutually check them and arrive at a certain figure, we will be able to make a reasonable assumption about the population of Ukraine. It will not replace the census, but it will be the best that is currently possible. It seems to me that we have all the opportunities to do this even in wartime," Makarchuk emphasized.

Among them, the head of the service named data from state registers, which have significantly improved during the war, although this data does not geolocate a person: he may be in the relevant register in one settlement, but actually live in another.

According to him, data from mobile operators can also be used, although they are not ideal, because there are several operators, and people can use the services of several mobile operators, and there are certain nuances related to attributing a person to a specific place of residence.

Makarchuk also mentioned the possibility of using, while respecting banking secrecy, the data of banks that know where their clients are, because they can see their transactions in the POS network and record clients' visits to the branch.