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........

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