LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers facing a grim and unending reality have embraced a modern way of preserving their legacy and helping build the future of their homeland by freezing their sperm so their partners and wives can bear their children if they are killed on the battlefield.
“I think the war made him realize that he wanted to be a father. He wanted to leave something behind if he died,” Halyna Khamylo, 30, said of her husband. Her explanations were occasionally interrupted by the enthusiastic babbling of her infant daughter, Polina. With bright blue eyes and thin, golden hair, Polina Khamylo was born on Aug. 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,” Ms. Khamylo said. “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 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 Ukrainian soldiers and their spouses or partners treatments to freeze their sperm and embryos, as well as in vitro fertilization, all free of charge.
“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, Ms. 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.
Dr. Khmil, a short, energetic man, 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 helped deliver.
“This is pure joy, to bring a child into the world,” he said 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. Polina’s father is a veteran of the war in Donbas, where he fought Russian proxies and was injured multiple times. He took up arms again when Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border in February 2022 and was 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,” Ms. Khamylo said softly, her daughter sleeping soundly in her arms.
Fighting genocide
Dr. Khmil said the war and the countless atrocities that followed spurred him to take concrete action to ensure the survival of the Ukrainian nation.
“I saw that this was the beginning of a total genocide of the Ukrainian people,” he said, 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 successive governments had long been concerned about demographic trends. When Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, its population was about 52 million. By 2021, it had fallen to 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. Mortality was high, with one-third of Ukrainians dying before age 65, and birthrates fell from 1.5 children per woman in 2012 to 1.2 in 2020.
The U.N. report also blamed “high levels of out-migration” as economic stagnation and low living standards sent an estimated 3 million Ukrainian workers abroad.
The war has accelerated those trends. Ukrainian authorities said the country’s population fell to 36.3 million as of August 2023. Only 187,000 babies were born last year, one-third fewer than before the invasion.
“A lot of the soldiers think, ‘All right, 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.”
Oksana Zholnovych, Ukrainian minister of social policy, warned in April that the country’s population could drop by up to 10 million by 2050, reaching a devastating low of 25.2 million.
Keenly aware of those trends, and with 40 years of experience as an OB-GYN, Dr. Khmil is doing his part to reverse them. To reach as many soldiers as possible, he has given countless media interviews, shared the program’s results on various social media platforms and put up ads in military recruitment centers.
“We now have soldiers coming straight from the front line 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 their equipment continues functioning during daily power outages.
Time is of the essence, the doctor said. Besides the loss of life at the front, the war has more insidious and less obvious effects on fertility.
“The quality of sperm deteriorates at the front,” he said. “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 injuries that prevent childbearing 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 said.
She said Dmytro, a sniper in the Ukrainian special forces, has lost part of his hearing and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“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, Ms. Fabian is now awaiting the transfer of embryos.
Asked whether she would want her first child to be a boy or a girl, she thought 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.
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