LVIV, Ukraine — With losses on the battlefield a grim daily reality and no end to the war in sight, Ukrainian soldiers have embraced a modern way of preserving their legacy and helping build the future of their embattled homeland: freezing their sperm so that their partners and wives can bear their children even if they’re killed.
“I think the war made him realize that he wanted to be a father, he wanted to leave something behind if he died,” said 30-year-old Halyna Khamylo of her husband, her explanations occasionally interrupted by the enthusiastic babbling of her infant daughter, Polina. Not quite a year old, with bright blue eyes and thin, golden hair, Polina Khamylo was born on August 27, 2023, after a successful in vitro fertilization treatment.
“We had tried for four years to have children, but the various treatments didn’t work,” explained Ms. Khamylo. “But when the war began, we discussed the idea of an IVF procedure and in late March, we decided to join the program.”
The program she refers to is the brainchild of Dr. Stefan Khmil, one of the country’s leading OB/GYN specialists and a professor of medicine at the University of Ternopil in western Ukraine.
For the past two years, Dr. Khmil and his team have offered to Ukrainian soldiers and their spouses or partners treatments to freeze their sperm and embryo, free of charge, as well as free in vitro fertilization programs.
“As part of this project, we have already provided free in vitro fertilization programs to 370 people, which have so far resulted in 65 births,” he said. “Currently, 83 additional women are pregnant.”
On June 20, Halyna Khamylo and her daughter were at the doctor’s clinic in Lviv, a modern and brightly lit facility with pastel-colored walls adorned with pictures of radiant mothers and happy babies.
A short, energetic man Dr. Khmil had greeted a group of visitors with a smile, Polina cooing in his arms. The doctor was visibly proud to show off one of the children he’d helped deliver.
“This is pure joy, to bring a child into the world,” he said, sitting in his office. “Despite the darkness, it makes me happy when I think that so many children now have appeared in the world thanks to our efforts.”
Ms. Khamylo and her husband were among the first to sign up for the program. A veteran of the war in Donbas, where he had fought against Russian proxies and been injured multiple times, Polina’s father took up arms again when Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border in February 2022. Since then, he’s been wounded again at the front.
“I want her to have a father, who gets to see her grow up, who takes part in her education,” said Ms. Khamylo softly, her daughter now soundly sleeping in her arms.
Fighting genocide
The war and the countless atrocities that followed spurred Dr. Khmil to take concrete action, he recalled, to ensure the survival of the Ukrainian nation.
“I saw that this was the beginning of a total genocide of the Ukrainian people,” he declared, furrowing his brows. “We needed to help the rebirth of the Ukrainian nation, and we needed to help our soldiers so that they had the opportunity to have children, a family.”
Even before the war, Ukraine’s demographic trends had long been a concern for its successive governments. When it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country had a population of about 52 million. In 2021, it had fallen to only 41 million.
A United Nations report published at the time called Ukraine’s population “one of the fastest shrinking in the world” and estimated it was likely to decrease to 35 million by 2050, a result of the high mortality — with a third of Ukrainians dying before the age of 65 — and low fertility rates: from a birthrate of 1.5 child per woman in 2012 to only 1.2 children in 2020.
The U.N. report also blamed the shrinking population on “high levels of out-migration,” as economic stagnation and low living standards had resulted in an estimated 3 million Ukrainians working abroad.
The war has only accelerated those trends: According to Ukrainian authorities, the country’s population had fallen further to just 36.3 million as of August 2023. Meanwhile, the number of births last year was only 187,000 — a third fewer than before the invasion.
“A lot of the soldiers think, ‘Alright, we’ll wait for the war to end, and then we’ll plan to have children,’” said Dr. Khmil. “But you have to live right now to have a family. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”
In April, Ukrainian Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych warned that the country’s population could drop by up to 10 million by 2050, reaching a devastating low of 25.2 million inhabitants.
Keenly aware of those trends, and with 40 years of experience as an OB/GYN, Dr. Khmil is doing his part to try and reverse them. In a bid to reach as many soldiers as possible, he has given countless interviews to the media, shared the results of the program on various social media platforms and even put up ads in military recruitment centers.
“We now have soldiers coming straight from the frontline in Donetsk, Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia, making use of their leaves to visit the clinic and freeze their sperm,” he said.
The waiting rooms of Dr. Khmil’s clinics in Lviv and Ternopil are always packed, and reserve generators ensure that their equipment keeps functioning despite daily power outages.
Time is of the essence, stresses the doctor, as, besides the loss of life at the front, the war also has more insidious — and less obvious — effects on fertility.
“The quality of sperm deteriorates at the front,” he noted. “Stress, hypothermia and physical trauma can cause infertility, which is why we suggest that soldiers come and donate their sperm as soon as possible.”
The possibility of sustaining injuries that prevent child-bearing is what led Natalia Fabian, 38, and her husband, Dmytro, to sign up for the program.
“My husband is a sportsman. He’s healthy. But he has already been wounded at the front,” she explained.
According to her, Dmytro — a sniper in the Ukrainian special forces — has already lost part of his hearing and suffers from PTSD.
“We know that the war and the trauma can deprive us of this opportunity, sooner or later,” she said.
With her husband back at the front, Natalia Fabian is now awaiting the transfer of embryos.
When asked if she’d want her first child to be a boy or a girl, she thinks for a second before answering: “Eventually, I would like to have both, but that’s not what matters the most. The most important thing is that my child is healthy, and can grow up under a peaceful sky, here in our Ukraine.”
• Guillaume Ptak can be reached at gptak@washingtontimes.com.