Ukrainian Refugees May Never Return Home, Even After the War Ends

Refugees from Ukraine arrive in Medyka, Poland, April 4, 2022. WOJTEK RADWANSKI/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused more than 4.2 million people to flee to the neighboring countries of Poland, Romania, Moldova and elsewhere.

Russia’s violence against civilians and attacks on cities caused an additional 6.5 million or more people to become internally displaced. They left their homes but moved within Ukraine to other areas where they hope to be safer.

Russia and Ukraine have been holding sporadic peace talks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said April 4, 2022, that talks will continue despite Russian soldiers’ committing mass murders of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine.

But there is no guarantee that the millions of displaced Ukrainians will want to go back to their homes even once the war eventually ends.

Lessons learned from the experiences of people displaced in other conflicts, like Bosnia and Afghanistan, provide insight into what might happen with Ukrainians at the end of the fighting. A wave of new social science research, including my own as a political scientist studying post-conflict settings, shows that once violence ends, people do not always choose to return home.

Time Matters

Several factors affect people’s choice to return to the place they fled, or to resettle elsewhere. Time is perhaps the most important.

Research shows that generations raised in places of refuge may no longer want to return to the place that was once home.

The faster the Ukrainian conflict is resolved, the more likely it will be that refugees will repatriate or return home.

Over time, displaced people adapt to their changed circumstances. In the best case, they form new social networks and get work opportunities in their places of refuge.

But if governments legally stop refugees from seeking formal employment, their prospects for financial self-sufficiency are grim.

This is the situation in some countries with large refugee populations such as Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are forced to live in camps and are prohibited from working.

This would not be the reality for most Ukrainian refugees, however. Most of them are resettling in the European Union, where they can get a special temporary protected status that enables them to work, attend school and receive medical care for at least one and up to three years.