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Yes, the Taliban pulled this off to massive success (by their standards/on their terms) not too long ago.
But in Ukraine's case, WHAT IS THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY.
Beat back Russia, maybe even join NATO, fine.
Your population still drops off a cliff. Protracting the war is hastening the decline there.
What sort of deal can you make that even lets you feel safe for the next couple decades?
The fertility crisis isn't going to be solved in or by Ukraine. If a solution is found, then Ukrainian wartime casualty counts will be irrelevant assuming they stay within 20th century (i.e. WWI level or less) norms, but could make the difference between Ukraine existing or not as a sovereign state in the future. Presumably the soldiers fighting are motivated by nationalism and care about such things. If a solution isn't found, then we go extinct and this discussion is moot.
Ukraine has a fertility stable population in the far west- which Russia will oppress because Galicia is the Balkans-level ultranationalist part of Ukraine. It's not the majority(or even close) but the UGCC has managed to get Galicia's fertility rate to stable just-below-replacement levels overall. Ukraine will be smaller but it will still be Ukraine.
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The problem isn’t birthrates, it’s excess deaths and emigration. The population is much lower because people who didn’t flee are being killed in the war. And keep in mind that win or lose, the population will not be enough to weather another invasion later on.
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No idea. Every option for Ukraine is losing. Making a deal with Russia is pointless because the only condition they will accept is not having a military, which is the same as surrendering their country to Russia. Either they accept being taken over by Russia and enduring whatever Putin does to secure control, or they throw themselves into debt on the hopes that they barely survive. If they win, then throw themselves on the mercy of Europe and endure having nothing while they try to rebuild.
I'm playing around with the idea of them basically becoming a semi-colonized nation where they sign various deals for access to their resources with enough countries, and have enough 'foreign' infrastructure built up in certain areas of their territory, (ideally nearer the Russian border) that there's now broader interest in maintaining their independence.
This would also grant more interest in providing foreign investment to rebuild. Unfortunately I probably underestimate Russia's motivation to crash such a party.
The most likely current scenario for Ukrainians managing to claw back some semblance of prosperity is probably a combination of resource deals, adult Ukrainians (continuing their) working in Western countries and sending home remittances a la other Eastern European countries, and tourism to various war-related targets for Western Ukraine supporters and other interested parties once it's mostly safe to do so. These would probably be kneecapped by any scenario that involved a forced turn towards Russia.
It has crossed my mind that Ace FPV drone operators can probably find jobs elsewhere operating drones in high-stress environments or training others to do so.
Or if other drone-centric combat breaks out, those with actual experience using these things might be able to offer services at a premium.
Can't run a whole economy off that, though.
There's a fair bit of other work (truck driving, security work etc.) that wartime experience also permits in peacetime contexts. However, most of the presumed remittance-sending work would be typical blue-collar labor (plumbers, nurses etc.) that many Ukrainians can do on the basis of that being their job already.
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I wouldn't be so dismissive of the possibility that solutions exist which simultaneously make Ukraine too weak to make it attractive for it to resume the war at a later point and reclaim territories (what is really Russia's minimum condition) and too strong to make it attractive for Russia to do so and capture more. The most obvious option is for NATO to provide a binding, boots-on-ground guarantee to defend it should Russia attack again. As far as I can see, the problem with this option is strictly that neither the current Ukrainian government (which surely would collapse in such a situation) nor the West (for whom a neutral Ukraine with present borders is of little value, and they would have to credibly signal that they would defend it, vs. the option to have it cheaply continue killing Russians and gamble on the absolute bonanza that a surprise Russian collapse would be) would actually want it.
Without EU membership/emigration opportunities/gibs, even the Ukrainian people (who are largely happy to accept a chance of death for a chance of climbing the butter mountains and swimming the wine lakes) would see no reason to accept such a peace, though I thought Russia at one point softened its stance on accepting an Austria-like "EU but no NATO" arrangement.
Ukraine is already too weak to attack Russia by choice, and that's not going to change no matter what the outcome of this is. I don't believe this is actually Russia's condition.
I would contend that Russia would also not accept this proposition, but even without that contention you already make it sound like a nonstarter.
If another country were actually willing to face Russia, they could do so right now. At this point, I think that if almost anyone but the U.S. said that they were sending troops and kept those troops in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't actually use nukes.
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