Private reproductive medicine clinics began offering the so-called cryopreservation to military personnel in 2022, at the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion, writes the BBC, quoted by BTA.
Military personnel can freeze their sperm or eggs for free in case they are wounded in battle or their reproductive capacity is affected.
The following year, parliament introduced measures to regulate the practice and provide state funding. “Our soldiers protect our future, but they can lose theirs, so we wanted to give them this opportunity“. This is how MP Oksana Dmitrieva describes the law she helped draft.
However, the politicians’ initial efforts sparked public outrage when they stipulated that all samples must be destroyed upon the donor’s death. This became clear when a soldier’s widow tried to have a child using her husband’s frozen sperm and was refused permission. The law has since been amended so that all soldiers’ samples are stored free of charge for up to three years after their death and can be used by their partner with prior written consent.
The program aims to address a demographic crisis that existed before the Russian invasion but has been made worse by the large number of men killed in combat, many of whom are the country’s youngest and healthiest. In addition, millions of people, mostly women, have left the country. Four years later, many of them are still abroad because life in Ukraine is not getting any easier. “We are also thinking about the future and all the young people we have lost. We need to replace them,” says Dmitrieva. “This is one small step towards improving the demographic situation.”
The State Center for Reproductive Medicine in Kiev began accepting soldiers for its “frozen sperm” program in January. So far, only about a dozen people have signed up, but the clinic is confident that this will change once the news spreads. The number of pregnant patients at the clinic has halved since the start of the war.
The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed on the battlefield during the four-year war with Russia is 55,000, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The last time Zelensky gave information about casualties in Ukraine was in December 2024, when the death toll was 43,000.
During an interview in early February with French television, he said: “In Ukraine, the official number of servicemen killed on the battlefield, whether they are regulars or mobilized, is 55,000.“
Six months ago, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry had registered more than 70,000 people as officially missing – both soldiers and civilians, the detailed distribution of which is not disclosed.