As the war in Ukraine grinds into its second year with no end in sight, some Ukrainians who fled to Europe are taking steps to secure a future that no longer includes a near-term return to their homeland.
In Germany, a study released this month revealed the great ambivalence about the question of whether to stay or go: 37% of Ukrainians surveyed would stay “several years” to “forever,” while 34% would go back after the war ends.
Why We Wrote This
For those who fled the war in Ukraine to Europe, it’s been a long time away from home. For some, it’s been long enough that it may be time to rethink where their future actually lies.
That is in keeping with most surveys of Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Caught between hope and resignation, their priorities are to move forward with their new lives as best they can.
It is clear that this uncertainty can influence the psychological health of Ukrainian refugees, says Yuliya Kosyakova, a migration researcher. Availability of jobs, housing, and schools for children are also significant factors affecting successful integration, she adds.
Teenager Anna Ivanova and her mother have German-issued two-year visas. If Anna can learn German well enough to attend university and her mother can find work in Berlin, she says they’ll think about extending their stay, putting them in the 37% of surveyed Ukrainians planning to stay indefinitely.
“German is harder [to learn] than English,” says Anna. “I need to work very hard.”
Myron Balyuk arrived in Germany without his ice skates.
In the rush to flee Russian bombs, the teenager left Ukraine with only his mother and their cats, leaving his father and a budding competitive skating career behind. They eventually landed in the small German town of Bad Wildungen, which they found as slow-paced as their native Kharkiv was speedy.
“Something that’s done in Kharkiv with a phone call takes two months here,” says Olga Balyuk of her new life in Germany. Learning the language has been a struggle. But a German hockey player impressed with Myron’s talent gave him a pair of skates.
Why We Wrote This
For those who fled the war in Ukraine to Europe, it’s been a long time away from home. For some, it’s been long enough that it may be time to rethink where their future actually lies.
Ms. Balyuk badly misses her husband, who, like all adult males, is not allowed to leave Ukraine. “I don’t want to plan a future alone,” she says, “but every day I wake up, I see on my phone that a rocket hit a restaurant or a house in Kharkiv. My own house no longer has windows. I am responsible for my son – it is better to be here.”
As the war grinds into its second year with no end in sight, some Ukrainians are taking steps to secure a future that no longer includes a near-term return to their homeland.
In Germany, a study released this month revealed the great ambivalence about the question of whether to stay or go: 37% of Ukrainians surveyed would stay “several years” to “forever,” while 34% would go back after the war ends. Another 27% are undecided. That is in keeping with most surveys of Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Caught between hope and resignation, their priorities are to move forward with their new lives as best they can.
“The initial idea of Putin was like a blitzkrieg, that the war would end in three days,” says Yuliya Kosyakova, a migration researcher at the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg. “Later, there were predictions the war would take three months. Now it has been a year, and many people have had to change their intentions and to adapt. This uncertainty is reflected in various ways, such as shaping integration patterns, or participation of Ukrainian refugees in German society.”
Time to put down roots?
Roughly 8 million Ukrainians have fled Ukraine for Europe since the war began, constituting the largest refugee crisis since World War II. They’ve landed all over Europe, with Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic receiving the largest populations outside of Russia.
Governments have been united in their welcome of Ukrainians. European policymakers even unlocked a temporary visa protection status – an instrument left dormant since the Balkan Wars in the 1990s – allowing Ukrainians to live and work in Europe.
“We’ve seen solidarity, an outpouring of support in terms of housing and schooling,” says Hanne Beirens, director at the Migration Policy Institute Europe. “The emergency response has a big effect on the potential for integration, for [Ukrainians] to find their place in the community. … Now, we’re witnessing a [policy] shift from the first reception response to an integration response without knowing how it will play out.”
At the one-year mark, it is clear that this uncertainty can influence the psychological health and well-being of Ukrainian refugees, as well as their willingness to learn the language, says Dr. Kosyakova. “For example, those who plan to stay longer are more likely to invest in language in order to have better job prospects.”
Other factors such as availability of jobs, housing, and spots in schools for children are also significant in successful integration. The last – availability of child care – is particularly important, as many Ukrainian refugees are women with minor children, says Dr. Kosyakova.
In Spain, only about 13% of the 161,000 Ukrainian refugees have officially registered as working, while slightly more have jobs in Switzerland and nearly a third have taken part in training programs.
France has only welcomed around 118,000 Ukrainians, but it has struggled to streamline administrative tasks and create enough comfortable accommodation. A majority live with family and friends, according to the French Immigration and Integration Office. The French government has focused its efforts on education, and since January, 347 Ukrainians have registered through Campus France’s Urgence Ukraine. The government initiative allows Ukrainians to learn the local language with the goal of registering for university classes next year. Campus France has also helped place 2,000 Ukrainians in universities across France.
“Some say they want to stay here to work, others want to go home. Many have trouble projecting into the future and they change their minds often,” says Donatienne Hissard, the director general of Campus France. “But what we know is that having a low level of French is a real obstacle for getting a job, but also the administrative tasks involved in daily life here.”
Lenora Chu
Teenager Anna Ivanova is from Dnipro, and she and her mother have a German-issued two-year visa, which expires in March 2024. If, by then, Anna can learn German well enough to attend university and her mother can find work in Berlin, she says they’ll think about extending their stay, putting them in the 37% of Ukrainians from the German survey planning to stay indefinitely.
“German is harder [to learn] than English,” says Anna. “I need to work very hard.”
Education epitomizes the challenges for both governments and Ukrainians as they look to go beyond temporary status into the integration phase. While most Ukrainians have registered their children in school in their host country, an equal amount have kept their children in online classes with their schools back in Ukraine. As governments – and parents – look forward, they’ll have to decide whether to continue classes back home or integrate fully into the European system.
The same is true for those in the job market. Pavla Novotná, the Czech Republic’s director general for asylum and migration policy, says that in questionnaires, a majority of Ukrainians say they do not wish to go into high-level positions and instead prefer to retain a certain degree of job flexibility.
Part of such ambivalence, says Ms. Beirens, of MPI, is Ukrainians’ strong positive identity as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call to return home and help with reconstruction efforts once the war ends.
“On the one hand, [the Ukrainian government] wants their citizens to feel at home and protected, but on the other, they want them to keep a sense of national identity and keep the flame alive,” says Ms. Beirens. “Many governments in Europe are conflicted on the role they can play.”
“We made a very lucky choice”
But there is only so much that Europe can do to help Ukrainians who wish to integrate more fully. A large part of their decision to stay or go stems from more personal aspects of life back in Ukraine that are nearly impossible to recreate or quantify – such as family homes, relationships, or a wistfulness for the past.
According to a study by the Razumkov Centre, a Kyiv-based think tank, 80% of Ukrainian refugees living across Europe indicated that a major problem with life abroad was concern for loved ones who remain in Ukraine. Other issues they cited included nostalgia, language difficulties, and problems getting jobs at 70%, 65%, and 41% respectively.
For a large majority, the status of family homes amidst the war has been a primary factor in Ukrainians’ ability to move forward in Europe – or stay rooted in their desire to return.
Anna Shestak, who got a part-time job teaching Ukrainian culture to children after she arrived in France last spring, says that even as her money runs dry, she still searches for ways to pay the rent for her house in the north of Ukraine. Meanwhile, her co-worker Svitlana Badytsia is conflicted. Her husband, aging mother, and family home are in central Ukraine, but her daughter and grandchild – who lost their home in Ukraine – have decided to stay in Paris for the near future.
“My daughter found a job here in cosmetics; my grandchild is in junior high. … If I stay, I want to feel useful, to work full time like back home,” says Ms. Badytsia. “I feel very torn, like I’m on the crossroads of staying and leaving.”
Still, many Ukrainians say they’re committed to their new life in Europe. A large number who arrived in Spain – especially in coastal areas – did so because they already had second homes there, according to Spain’s Refugee Aid Commission. Others have seen their vision of vacation and home collide.
“Our idea was to travel to Tenerife and stay three months to travel, but then the war started,” says Dmytro Ostapchenko, who arrived with his girlfriend, Marina Uzbekova, one week before the war began. Now he works virtually for his Ukrainian employer, and she studies online with her university back home. They live in a small studio apartment facing the ocean and have a good group of friends from Spain and abroad. The couple says they’re now planning to stay in Tenerife indefinitely.
“Here, you see people doing fitness in the mornings, sitting in restaurants at night with friends. They look so happy,” says Mr. Ostapchenko. “Now we’ve been here for one year and we think we made a very lucky choice. If we only get one life, it’s a good idea to spend it in a nice place.”