Ukrainian Refugee Crisis: The Current Situation

The mass migration triggered by the Russian-instigated war is not simply about fleeing Ukraine to the nearest safe country; it has become more complex. This intricacy has become particularly evident in recent months as the movement of refugees from countries directly bordering Ukraine has expanded further west, mainly to Germany, but also as far as Canada, where there is a robust Ukrainian diaspora. Many Ukrainians maintain contact with home through short-term moves back and forth, building on pre-existing patterns of seasonal labour migration. Millions of refugees have returned permanently to their homeland but rarely to the areas where they fled.

The situation in Europe

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are currently around 6 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

The distribution of refugees has changed significantly over the past year. While in 2022 Poland was still the country with the highest number of forcibly displaced persons, Germany is now the leading destination. According to newly revised statistics, there are now over 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees on German territory. Monthly arrivals fluctuate, but remain significant. Between the end of July and the end of September 2024, for example, the authorities registered some 20,000 new arrivals.

The refugee situation has changed dramatically in Poland as well. Of the more than 1.6 million refugees to whom Poland granted temporary protection, only about 970,000 remain there. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians left in 2022, traveling mainly to Germany, but also to other Western European countries, as well.

Currently, the number of temporary protection holders in Poland is stable. However, it should be noted that there is a lot of movement on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Circular movements in both directions amount to tens of thousands of people per day, according to the Polish border guards. The most common reason for this being the temporary returns to Ukrainians to visit family members.

Focusing on the number of refugees per capita, the Czech Republic tops the EU ranking, with about 35 Ukrainian temporary protection holders per 1,000 inhabitants. Only Moldova, outside the EU, reports a higher proportion of refugees per capita. Refugees there make up about one twentieth of the population.

Of the Western European countries, Germany does not have the highest relative number of refugees, but perhaps somewhat surprisingly for many, Ireland does. As of February 2022 to date, some 110,000 Ukrainian citizens have received temporary protection in Ireland. This rapid growth has only stopped due to the drastic reduction of social support for new arrivals that came into effect as of April 2024.

In this context, it is important to note that in the case of Ireland, as in Germany and Austria, the Ukrainian refugee crisis is just one of many. The mass arrival of Ukrainians is occurring at the same time as record numbers of asylum seekers from non-European countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Venezuela are arriving in these countries.

Canada and the USA

A significant number of Ukrainian refugees have left to seek sanctuary overseas. More than half a million Ukrainians have headed to Canada and the US since February 2022. Both of these  introduced special visa regimes for Ukrainian refugees. Those interested in staying in Canada are admitted through the CUAET (Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel) program, through which they can obtain work and study permits, among other things, from within the country. Interest in the program is high - by April 2024, Canadian authorities had registered about 1.2 million applications. Nearly one million of them have already been approved, but the number of people who have taken actually advantage of the entry permit is significantly lower. According to the latest data, only about 300,000 Ukrainian citizens have headed to Canada through the CUAET programme.

Nearly all of the approximately 270,000 Ukrainians who fled to the U.S. have been granted either Temporary Protected Status or (for those who arrived after April 1, 2022) a special humanitarian visa granted under the Uniting For Ukraine (U4U) program. The basic principle of the U4U visa, which is valid for a period of two years, is that it unites individuals with families already legally residing in the U.S. This sponsorship role can be taken on by relatives or friends of applicants, as well as volunteers from the general public.

The relatively high interest of Ukrainians in emergency movement to Canada and the USA can be explained, in part, by their deep and rich migration history. There has been a robust Ukrainian diaspora in both North American countries since the nineteenth century.

Russia

The data on the number of refugees heading east to Russia remain highly uncertain. Official Russian sources from the so-called power structures speak of 5 and sometimes even more than 7 million refugees a year after the start of their "special military operation". According to an analysis by experts from the Russian non-profit organisation 'Civic Support', these figures reflect the number of people crossing the Russian border and are drastically overestimated. Many experts estimated the actual number of displaced people at 1.2 million. The newly revised UNHCR figures are consistent with this.

Not much is known about the fates of Ukrainians who resettled in Russia. Based on a previously adopted government resolution, the new arrivals are redistributed across all 85 Russian regions, starting with the Voronezh and Rostov regions, which border Ukraine, and ending in Chukotka, seven thousand kilometres away.

Information regarding the legal status of displaced people is also murky. Instead of refugee status, which is virtually unheard of in Russia, those arriving from Ukraine in 2022 were often granted  'temporary shelter' (vremennoye ubezhishche), which in practice meant fewer rights for them and the obligation to re-register regularly. However, the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior shows that the number of temporary refuge holders is steadily decreasing. Currently, only about 11,000 Ukrainians have this status.

While Russia generally refers to transfers from occupied territories as "evacuations", from the perspective of the international community, given Russia's non-recognition of its annexations, these are, in fact, deportations. As of March 2023, the International Criminal Court in the Hague has issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in connection with the abduction of Ukrainian children. Nearly 20,000 of them are found on Russian territory, according to the latest estimates.

Returns

A significant number of refugees have already returned to their homeland. The UNHCR has registered over 11 million border crossings into Ukraine as of early April 2023. This figure, however, includes repeat crossings. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates the actual number of returnees at around 4.5 million.

Refugees' plans to return have remained unchangedf for a long time: opinion polls of displaced individuals across Europe show that most intend to return to Ukraine. However, leading Ukrainian officials and independent experts agree that a mass return will only be possible if the country can meet three basic conditions: work, housing, and security.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs)

Internal displacement is an often overlooked but integral aspect of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. According to the IOM's most recent report in October 2024, the number of internal refugees (IDPs) was approximately 3.5 million. However, Ukrainian authorities estimate that, including people already displaced before 24 February 2022, the IDP population is probably something more like 4.9 million.

Almost half of all those displaced come from the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. The distribution of internal refugees has changed significantly over time: if in the first months of the war most people sought refuge in the west of the country, nowadays most of them remain in the most war-affected east. Nearly a million IDPs now live in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions alone. A very high number of IDPs, almost 700 thousand in total, are also registered in Kyiv and Kyiv region.

The socio-economic situation of internal refugees is continues to worsen with prolonged displacement. According to the latest IOM survey, only about half of all working-age IDPs have managed to find legal sort of legal employment. Most households have exhausted all their savings, making IDPs increasing dependent on state assistance. However, the majority of government assistance has substantially reduced since March 2024. Whereas previously all registered IDPs were entitled to state aid, now aid is only given to the most vulnerable, such as the elderly, people with a recognised disabilies or orphans.