Ukraine’s KYIV Before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Iryna Schestova and her husband had settled in Kyiv. She was surrounded by family. Her sister and her two daughters resided in the city. But now that the conflict has scattered her family, she lives alone.
While fighting in the military in eastern Ukraine, Schestova’s husband was slain. Canada is where her youngest daughter now resides. Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, is where her sister resides. Her oldest daughter has returned from a brief stint overseas. In order to avoid the noises of battle, she would rather remain in the suburbs than at her mother’s apartment.
Before being forced to leave once more, this time to Romania, by Russia’s full-scale invasion, Schestova resided in Kyiv after being displaced by war in her homeland of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, in 2014. She returned to Kyiv last year because, like many Ukrainians, she didn’t want to live overseas.
“I wasn’t sure exactly what I would do in Romania even if I stayed there. And I made the decision that it would be better for me to be here and not know what to do just now,” says Schestova, 50.
According to UN statistics, she is one of over a million Ukrainians who have returned to their homeland after escaping the 2022 invasion. There are still over 5 million Ukrainian refugees living abroad. According to a March study of Ukrainians living overseas conducted by the Kyiv-based think tank Centre for Economic Strategy, 43% of participants stated they would prefer to go back.
Although Ukraine had been experiencing population decline due to its low birth rate long before the Russian invasion, the conflict made the issue worse. Groups are now attempting to assist in the repatriation of refugees.
It’s hard to generalize about their experiences, says Ksenia Gedz, advocacy coordinator for Right to Protection, a Ukrainian charity that aids refugees and other war-affected people.
The refugees are mostly dispersed around Europe, however some are also in the US and other countries. The nations provide varying rights and protections, as well as varying career and citizenship prospects.
After losing many of their ties to the locations they fled more than three years ago, some people’s homes back in Ukraine were destroyed, or they have little chance of finding employment. About a fifth of Ukraine is under Russian control, however certain areas are still heavily attacked and others are not.
With the goal of making the process as simple as possible, Right to Protection is attempting to get ready for the day when millions of returns return. “We need to understand what we are going to do with them, whether we have housing for them …, whether we have employment opportunities, and what will be on the community level when we are talking about social cohesion,” Gedz stated.
“I think this procedure could be facilitated easily and smoothly, but we don’t have that. This is an issue as we lack a thorough, methodical, and all-encompassing strategy for interacting with Ukrainians overseas and determining what prospects they will have when they return,” she says.
The Ukrainian government started a program this year to aid in the repatriation of displaced individuals. NPR’s request for comment was not answered by the government office in charge of the program.
Schestova claims she returned to Romania for financial reasons, despite the opportunity to start over there: In Kyiv, where she speaks the language and has contacts, her job as a real estate agent and business owner was simpler. She claims that even though she loved Bucharest, the city, it was challenging to fit in. “You get exhausted every time you go to a new nation. She explains, “It takes a lot of work every time you try to reintegrate [into] another society.”
Right to Protection has done research on the needs of people returning to Ukraine with the help of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. The organization has not yet published the findings, but it told NPR about them.
The team discovered that a lot of people have comparable difficulties finding employment in their new areas. It’s also very difficult to learn a new language. Due to family members still residing in Ukraine, over half of Ukrainian refugees (56%) wish to return.
About 350 kilometers west of Kyiv, in Lviv, resides Schestova’s sister. She escaped in a car with two daughters and four cats, while her husband, who was in a combat unit, remained in Kyiv. He was later killed.
At least now that Schestova is back, it’s simpler to visit his burial, which is located in a cemetery outside of Kyiv. When she talks about him, her eyes go hazy and she doesn’t want to think about the specifics of his death. Because she was able to identify his body and have him buried, she thinks she is fortunate to have closure.
However, neither of Schestova’s daughters followed her back to Ukraine. The oldest, 26-year-old Liia Kazakova, was living and working in the Czech Republic until she required back surgery and chose to return home to Kyiv, where her mother is sure that the hospitals are far superior. The youngest, meantime, is in Canada and is attending college in Toronto.
Kazakova isn’t prepared to stay, though. She claims that she has trouble falling asleep at night in her mother’s downtown apartment. She becomes too stressed out by the sounds of incoming and outgoing military operations and air raid sirens.
Schestova chuckles at how she and her daughter are different, stating, “I sleep while she sits and scrolls. She is unable to find peace of mind.
When her mother teases her, Kazakova takes it seriously. “This is a major issue for me because you may feel safe in any place in the world, but not in Ukraine. The daughter claims that listening to these noises keeps her from falling asleep.
Gedz discusses mental health services as one of the many factors to take into account when aiding returnees. “A lot of Ukrainians who moved to foreign countries starting from the 24th of February, 2022, they are not used to the sound of air raid alerts and explosions,” she says.
But the main incentive for individuals to return would be the end of the war, more than any help. According to research by Right to Protection, the primary deterrent to returning is security concerns, with more than half of those who wish to return stating that they would do so if hostilities in Ukraine stopped.
“Security concerns are the primary reason to return. Therefore, it’s really tough to tell and explain to Ukrainians to return until we [do not] have this air raid alert for like eight or six hours and daily drone and missile attacks,” Gedz says.
Kazakova concurs with this opinion. “If the war would be over, I would start thinking about, you know, a good plan, what it means to return,” she continues.
However, the fight is still ongoing. Kazakova is currently residing in a home tucked away in the suburbs of Kyiv. She is sitting on a beanbag chair in the yard with trees on either side and birds chirping in the fresh air. While she waits to recuperate from her operation and handle her paperwork so she can return to Prague, she can actually sleep at night here, away from the noises of conflict. She has left her cat and several possessions with her ex-boyfriend in Poland in the interim.
She does not, however, wish to permanently avoid Ukraine.
Being moved is like having a puzzle piece in the incorrect box, according to Kazakova.
“But come back to your own box and you fit there,” she continues. “At this point, you understand that the last box was incorrect. It wasn’t yours.
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