Ukrainian border guards refute claims about large-scale youth migration abroad

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine does not confirm claims of large-scale migration of young people abroad following the permission for men aged 18–22 to leave the country.

According to Ukrinform, this was stated on air by Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service.

He refuted assumptions that migration of young Ukrainians abroad over the past six months had reached half a million people.

“I cannot say where such figures come from, because the Border Guard Service has not conducted such an analysis and has not publicly provided such data. They do not correspond to reality and are not objective. Even if we compare the entire year of 2025, there are no such numbers indicating a predominance of departures from Ukraine, even in terms of total border crossings across all categories – women, men, and various age groups,” Demchenko assured.

At the same time, he noted that the Border Guard Service maintains only general statistics on border crossings and does not break them down by age or gender.

“When men aged 18 to 22 were allowed to leave Ukraine, this regulation came into effect on August 28 (2025 – ed.). Various media outlets contacted the Border Guard Service and received the same response – that we do not keep statistics by age and gender. They also contacted neighboring countries. The data provided, for example, by the Polish side, are several times lower. Quite often it is said that a large number of citizens have left Ukraine and have not returned. But people forget to mention that there is also movement into Ukraine,” Demchenko emphasized.

According to him, in 2025 a total of 37 million border crossings were recorded into and out of Ukraine, with the dynamics fluctuating at roughly 50/50 in percentage terms, without a significant predominance of departures from the country.

It should be noted that Serhii Nahorniak, a member of parliament from the Servant of the People faction, said on the Ranok.LIVE broadcast that the scale of youth migration from Ukraine had reached critical levels. According to his information, over the past six months alone, approximately more than 500,000 young people have left the country.

As previously reported by Ukrinform, more than 40% of employers have felt the impact of allowing young men to leave Ukraine.