Ukrainian refugees in Europe

De facto > Issue 33

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Distri­bu­tion of Ukrai­nian refu­gees in Europe

Refu­gees recorded per country

Coun­tries where the majo­rity of recorded Ukrai­nian refu­gees have tran­sited to another country

Iceland
Czech Republic
Germany
Poland
Russia
Slovakia
France
Spain
Italy
Hungary
Romania
Türkiye
Moldova
Belarus

Note : The data corres­pond the situa­tion on 1 June 2022
Source : Ukraine Refugee Situa­tion, United Nations High Commis­sion for Refugees

Gate­ways to the Euro­pean Union

With the excep­tion of Russia, where the 1.1 million Ukrai­nians who took refuge there are still in situ, the refugee popu­la­tions in the other coun­tries have gradually decreased. Of the 3.7 million refu­gees who arrived in Poland, around one-third (1.152 million) were still regis­tered on Polish terri­tory in early June. This decline is even more marked in the other neigh­bou­ring coun­tries. In Moldova, new arri­vals have always been outnum­bered by depar­tures, notably to Romania, where half of all Ukrai­nian refu­gees arrived directly from Ukraine and the other half from Moldova. But few stay in Romania. Accor­ding to UNHCR data, out of almost one million people who have crossed through the country, just 82,344 have remained. Fewer than 20% of refu­gees regis­tered in Moldava, Romania and Slovakia have stayed in these coun­tries. The most notable case is that of Hungary. Of the 731,098 arri­vals recorded by the UNHCR at the Ukrai­nian border, only slightly more than 3% (24,091) were still in the country in early June. Poland is the only country of both transit and desti­na­tion. Some 1.4 million refu­gees were counted in the coun­tries neigh­bou­ring Ukraine (exclu­ding Russia), in early June, while 2.165 million had travelled further west, of whom almost one-third (780,000) to Germany. A clear change of direc­tion towards central Europe.

Europe tempo­ra­rily lifted all immi­gra­tion restric­tions for Ukrai­nians on 4 March, enabling them to travel freely across Europe, and provided excep­tional protec­tion to displaced Ukrai­nians upon request. This freedom of move­ment for Ukrai­nian passport holders also explains their arrival in more distant desti­na­tions such as Turkey (around 135,000 refu­gees accor­ding to the Turkish govern­ment), Georgia (around 20,000), and Israel for Ukrai­nian citi­zens with proof of Jewish ancestry (around 15,000).

Retur­ning to a country at war

With figures of 7 million depar­tures from Ukraine but just 4.8 million regis­tered refu­gees, the UNHCR statis­tics point up the diffi­culty of measu­ring return migration.

The UNHCR has recorded a quite steady flow of around 10,000 returns per day since the start of the war, and from May 2022, returns began to coun­ter­ba­lance depar­tures. Accor­ding to accounts relayed by the press, the reasons for retur­ning are diverse. Among Ukrai­nian retur­nees who emigrated before the war, men report a desire to join up, and women, the desire to be with their rela­tives or chil­dren left behind when they went abroad to find work. Recent refu­gees, after three months in exile, talk about the winding down of emer­gency support services, the dislo­ca­tion of their family, the diffi­cul­ties of finding a place to live and of settling abroad more gene­rally. This return move­ment is also observed among inter­nally displaced popu­la­tions : at the end of May, Kyiv city hall reported that two-thirds of the city’s inha­bi­tants had returned.