Border Guard denies claim of "half a million" young people leaving in six months – provides current data

More than half a million young people have allegedly left Ukraine in six months, according to a Servants of the people Serhiy Nagornyak. However, the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko, denied this information during the telethon.

He noted that the State Border Guard Service has not done such an analysis of the data and does not keep records of citizens' departure by age. Border guards do not know where the MP got this information.

"The State Border Guard Service did not provide such data to the public and, in fact, I can say that it is not true and not objective," Demchenko said.

According to him, even if we compare the whole of 2025 for all categories of citizens, there is no preference for 500,000 people to leave Ukraine. In addition, the data provided by the border guards of neighboring states on border crossings by men since August 2025 is many times less than the number mentioned by the deputy.

Demchenko noted that Ukrainians make up 85% of the total passenger traffic at the border and are actively both leaving and entering the country. In general, the tendency to cross the border is growing every year. In 2025, it increased by 5% compared to 2024. Speaking in millions, last year 37 million people crossed the border of Ukraine in total.

"But we don't have such a significant preference for departure as we saw in 2022, when perhaps 80% of the total passenger traffic in the first months went to leave Ukraine. The dynamics fluctuate 50% to 50%," the SBGS spokesman emphasized.

• According to Polish border guards, as of the end of October 2025, in two months the border with Poland almost 100,000 men crossed the border aged 18-22.
• on January 16, 2026, NGL.media reported that more than half a million menbut since the beginning of the full-scale war.
• january 22 in Ukraine recorded negative migration – 290,000 more people left than returned.