Unless Keeeev is handing out free money to buy houses with, I don't see any way this is possible.
Ukraine's population is at least 12 million fewer than before the war.
Real estate is priced mainly off the two components of demand,
desire, and ability to pay.
1) DESIRE/DEMAND: Wikipedia says 1/4 of all Ukrainians have left their homes (only some of those emigrated, with others moving within the country and consolidating with family, but we are still talking about millions). Millions gone, and where is one of the worst places to be? The capital. Would you move to Washington DC if the US started an open war with a strong neighbor?
There are a fixed number of houses in Keev, and when the number of residents drops, it can have a cascading effect, crashing prices. If the population drops by 5%, the price of housing typically drops much MORE than 5%, because only a small portion of the population looks to move in any given year, so you are looking at orders of magnitude of changes in supply and demand. When there are 1.2 houses for every family, the
prices of the vacant houses drop quickly.
2) ABILITY TO PAY: The Ukrainian economy is on life support. If you have a job related to supplying the military with food, equipment, or provisions, maybe the money is flowing, but otherwise the economy has come to a standstill and even things like grain exports are difficult. Are banks giving Ukrainians no money down loans? Not a wise move if they are. And if they aren't, I would expect the
ability to afford housing is poor.
I have a friend who was living there when the war broke out. He quickly fled, leaving his apartment there. At the time, he planned to move back when the war ended, assuming no one had taken over his property, to take advantage of the cheap country with fewer people.
Expensive housing in Keev? Maybe in one tiny upscale neighborhood. Kind of like you can imagine
Brandy on the sinking Titanic might have gone for a very high price.
But there's surely a lot of FREE housing available in Kiev.
Abandoned homes from those who fled. Expensive homes? I don't see that. Why would you overpay for a house there, even if you could? A Russian bomb could land on your "investment" tomorrow and then you're screwed.
As for demographics, even Ukrainian and western media admits the Ukrainian demographics are in trouble:
The country's birth rate has fallen 28% since Russia invaded, official statistics indicate.
www.bbc.com
Based on what? Intuition?
The death reports I've seen come from sources who watch Russian and Ukrainian military reports, and who watch every combat video they can get their hands on, down to counting physical bodies in drone footage.
If there is an alternate opinion, let's hear it but "I don't believe X" doesn't really mean much, unless there is a compelling reason to believe something different.
Anyway, what I've seen since the fall of Avdiivka, it's more like
1,000 Ukrainian deaths a day, not 80.
Sergei Shoigu, granted, is a Russian, and one must always take claims of opponent casualties with some suspicion, but this is not a political leader, or a guy with an axe to grind. He's the military strategist, and having the true facts is important, nay vital, to planning an effective strategy.
observatorial.com
Now, I've seen the footage of the 4 Abrams tanks being destroyed, so at least some of this data is confirmed as true. Could he be mistaken or lying about the number of Ukrainian deaths? Sure, it's possible, but it's a believable data point to me, particularly given no better alternate source.
By the way, those 71,000 deaths this year so far, are
3x what Ukraine lost this time last year.
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On another topic, while Keev apparently did claim that all Russia's missiles were intercepted (lol) in the massive attack yesterday, I heard on US media (NPR I believe) that around 1/3 were intercepted. So apparently US media no longer believes what Keev says anymore. ( I guess it was impossible to report Keev's perfect lie since there is ample footage of things blowing up in Keev all around social media).
As of now, Russia is no longer conducting a special military operation.
RUSSIA IS AT WAR.
Expect things to change accordingly going forward.
I would also expect things to get worse internationally (oil, grain, and commodities prices may be in for a shock).
This particular drone took off from the Romanian airbase Campia Turzii, where the MQ-9A group is located. Poland also has them, but in smaller numbers - two Reapers at the Minsk-Mazowiecki base and two MQ-1Cs at Mielec.
