<
https://theconversation.com/ukrainian-families-have-been-torn-apart-by-the-war-reunifying-them-is-no-easy-task-283315>
"Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused the largest forced population displacement
crisis in Europe since the second world war. As of 2026, roughly 4.4 million
refugees from Ukraine hold temporary protection status in the EU. Around 4.6
million more are internally displaced.
Hundreds of thousands of families in the country have been separated and many
relatives have not seen each other for years. Men subject to conscription
cannot leave Ukraine, while older adults and people with mobility issues face
difficulties evacuating. Others have simply chosen to stay in their homes.
Travelling around Ukraine is unsafe and trips abroad are expensive and,
sometimes, restricted. Even digital communication is not always possible,
particularly for families now split across Russia and Ukraine, because the
Russian authorities have blocked access to foreign social media platforms.
Moving to Russia has been a reality for many people in Ukraine. Over 1 million
Ukrainians fled to Russia between 2014 and 2015, when Russia began
orchestrating hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern
Ukraine. A similar amount are thought to have crossed the Russian border since
the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Between 2016 and 2018, I carried out research on Ukrainians displaced in
Russia. I found that some people had opted to move to Russia rather than
relocate to other parts of Ukraine because they feared a deepening crisis in
their homeland. Many of the people I encountered had friends in Russia or used
to work there.
When the full-scale invasion began, fleeing to Russia was often the only option
for people living near the frontlines to escape alive as the war made it
extremely difficult to travel from areas behind Russian lines to other regions
of Ukraine. The US State Department says hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian
civilians from the occupied territories, including tens of thousands of
children, have also been forcibly transferred to Russia during the war."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
