Where are Ukrainian refugees going? – an update

A temporary tent camp set up for Ukrainian refugees in Donetsk, in Russia’s Rostov region near the Russian-Ukrainian border, June 22, 2014 (Reuters/Eduard Korniyenko). Source: How Unrest in Ukraine Is Sending a Wave of Refugees to Russia

In August I discussed Ukrainian refugee data in my post “You can’t understand Ukraine without acknowledging its deep divisions“ and how this illustrates the deep divisions in the country. Unless these divisions are acknowledged and all the data considered one simply cannot understand the problems.

Ignoring the refugees from the Donbass and eastern Ukraine, who mainly fled to the Russian Federation, distorts the situation. Unfortunately, our media often falls into that trap.

Also, ignoring the refugees from those areas who fled between 2014 (when the civil war broke out) and February 24 2022 (the date used by the UN for the start of the refugee problem) misrepresents the situation. Our media persists with this fundamental mistake that the Ukrainian conflict started on February 24 thi\us purposely misrepresenting the Russo-Ukraine war.

Here I update the UN figures for refugees. The data is mainly for November 2002, although there is some variation (e.g. the data for the Russian Federation is for October 2022). I have also corrected my mistake of not including the refugees in the period 2014 and February 24, 2022.

The tables below for the refugees since February 2014 are taken from the UN – Ukraine Refugee Situation. However, the pie charts below are more complete as I have included an estimate of the number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the Russian Federation in the period between 2014 and 2022. This estimate is 1.5 million. I don’t know if this includes the estimated 120,000 who fled to the Russian Federation in the period just before the 24th of February 2024. This was caused by an increase in Ukrainian attacks on civilian areas just before the invasion.

Ukrainian refugees since 2014

This pie chart shows a fact our media ignores – Russia is bearing the main costs of supporting Ukrainian refugees – 48% of the refugees fled to the Russian Federation. This is understandable if one thinks about it. The war is taking place mainly in the east and south of Ukraine. This is where homes are being destroyed and lives are under threat. The people here are mainly Russian, ethnically. They have close ties with Russia including family ties. It is natural that most of the refugees from these areas will flee to Russia

Ukrainian refugees since February 24, 2022

Even considering the data only for those fleeing since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2022 we see that Russia is still bearing the major brunt of the refugee problem. Russia has received 38% of these refugees – more than any other country.

There are problems in Western Europe because refugees are not always welcome. But this is unlikely to be the case in the Russian Federation because the refugees speak the same language and have the same cultural and religious background. Family ties are also common.

But the Russian Federation is obviously bearing most of the economic costs of the Ukrainian refugee problem. Russia also has the cost of restoration of housing and facilities destroyed by the war in the areas they have liberated and annexed.

Some of the new housing being built in Mariupol where most houses were destroyed during the early weeks of the war.

UN data for refugees in Europe since February 24, 2022

Fake news about Ukrainian refugees

The main misrepresentation is that Ukrainian refugees are fleeing mainly to rich western countries and that Western Europe is bearing the main burden. This is obviously not true but is a common theme in western media. (For example, Number of refugees entering Europe grows as power is cut in Ukrainian towns, or Ukrainian refugees: Challenges in a welcoming Europe which lists the “top ten countries hosting Ukrainian refugees” but purposely excludes Russia).

The other common distortion is to claim that refugees hosted by Russia were forcefully deported (eg –Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forced to Russia, U.S. claims). This is ridiculous but is one of the more fanciful claims disseminated by the authorities in Kiev which are often uncritically picked up by the western media.

*NOTE

It is hard to find complete figures for the refugees fleeing the country between 2014 and 2022 so I have used the commonly accepted estimate. I will update this post when I get my hands on the relevant data from reliable sources. So far, the UN data I have found has been for only individual years.

The refugee numbers are increasing all the time. The recent evacuation of Kherson will mean an increase in the number of refugees in the Russian Federation. The current attacks on services like water and electricity throughout Ukraine will increase the number of refugees fleeing to Western Europe. This parallels the situation in Donbass where such attacks on essential services since 2014 (as well as the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas) has caused many refugees to flee to the Russian Federation.

Most recently the authorities in Kiev have claimed that the entire population of Ukraine will have to move to other countries in winter because of the Russian destruction of electricity and water services. This claim is extreme and obviously aimed at involving NATO forces directly in the conflict by threatening Europe with the problem of increasing refugee numbers. There is no doubt that the destruction of essential services will lead to more emigration.

There are also rumours of the outbreak of civil unrest in Odessa as civilians oppose the poor response of the city administration to the loss of civilian services. It is possible such civil unrest will spread and this may also promote emigration and an increase in refugee numbers.

Finally, we should never forget the large number of refugees that have been settled within the country who must be supported by Ukrainian institutions and international humanitarian agencies.