Poorly managed veteran reintegration could trigger a wave of emigration from Ukraine if soldiers no longer see their country as a viable place to live, further straining an already shrinking population, a senior Carnegie defense analyst has warned.
Dara Massicot, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has identified the emigration risk as one of the most consequential outcomes of reintegration failure in an analysis for Foreign Affairs, "Hvylya" reports.
Ukraine's veteran population could reach two million - a significantly larger share of the total population compared to Russia's projected one million-plus. This makes successful reintegration "even more important for the country to thrive," Massicot writes. The ultimate measure of success will be "the number of veterans that stay in Ukraine to help rebuild the country once the fighting stops."
If reintegration fails, veterans may look abroad for economic opportunities, compounding the demographic damage already inflicted by wartime emigration to Europe and internal displacement. "Such emigration would further strain the country's already shrinking population," Massicot warns.
The analyst notes that Ukraine has already created multiple programs to anchor veterans in the economy, including employment training, job placement services, full salary subsidies for employers who hire veterans, and government grants for veteran-founded startups. But these programs "must be scaled up to support the large number of soldiers who are still in active military service."
To achieve this, Ukraine will likely need international financial support, and Kyiv will need to convince foreign partners to make veteran aid a priority in reconstruction funding.
Also read: Kofman Outlines an Optimistic Scenario for Ukraine in the Coming Year.