Ukraine – Emigration and Displacement in Past and Present | Eastern Europe | bpb.de

Ukraine has gone through more crises than most other republics of the former USSR. Since the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, it has been the second largest European country in size. While the country has since strived to become a functioning democratic state with a competitive economy integrated into both the post-Soviet and European markets , Ukraine has also experienced a series of economic crises, social upheavals, and wars over the past 30 years.

Throughout its history, Ukraine has been part of several different states, kingdoms and empires such as the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire and the Soviet Union. Since its independence in 1991 Ukraine has been torn between Russia and the Western institutions it wants to join such as the EU and the NATO. These different constellations all have shaped migration flows to, through and from the territory of present-day Ukraine.

Ukraine – a country with high emigration

The territory of contemporary Ukraine is characterised by significant emigration. The country’s population shrank from almost 52 million in 1991 to about 42 million in 2020, nearly a 20 percent drop. This is due to a mix of a high emigration rate, coupled with high death and low birth rates . Some sources suggest there could be a Ukrainian diaspora of up to 20 million people who left the territory of contemporary Ukraine before independence in 1991 . After independence another four to seven million emigrants (estimates vary depending on definition, source and year) left Ukraine prior to the war in the eastern part of the country which started in 2014.

In global comparison, Ukraine is among the top ten countries with the highest emigration levels . However, the country also attracted immigrants in recent decades, though immigration never reached levels that could outweigh population decline related to emigration and low birth rates.

The recent Russian invasion, which started on 24 February 2022, has resulted in immense displacement. Roughly four months after the beginning of the war there were already around twelve million displaced Ukrainians; this includes around 2.6 million who fled to neighbouring countries and about seven million who are internally displaced .

Emigration until the early twentieth century

Understanding today's complex and multifaceted migration processes in Ukraine requires a historical perspective. Scholarship distinguishes four phases of Ukrainian emigration. The first significant phase of emigration, late 19th– early 20th century, involved mainly rural populations. From Western Ukraine, then part of Austria-Hungary known as Galicia, about half a million people (or around ten percent of the population) went to the USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil. From Eastern Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, people rather moved East: to Siberia, the Altai or the Far East. In sum, in the 20 years preceding World War I some two million Ukrainians migrated to Asia .

The second phase comprised the early Soviet times of the 1920s and 1930s. At least one million Ukrainians, many dispossessed peasants, were forcefully displaced internally to other regions of the USSR. Specifically in the 1930s, large numbers also escaped collectivization and the Holodomor, a politically induced famine.

The Second World War and its aftermath led to a third phase of emigration. Westward, it was almost entirely political. The National Socialist Regime relied heavily on foreign labour and established one of the largest forced labour systems in history. People were also deported to the German Reich from the Soviet Union (and thus also from the territory of today's Ukraine) and forced to work. By the end of 1944, there were about six million civilian forced labourers, including about 2.8 million from the Soviet Union. Most of them returned home voluntarily after the war or were forcibly repatriated. However, there were also people who refused to return to the USSR for fear of persecution. Among them were Ukrainians of whom around 85,000 were later resettled in the USA .

Eastward, emigration consisted of forced evacuation, deportation of opponents of the Soviet regime and so-called “unreliable” populations from the territory annexed by the USSR that once was Polish and today forms part of Western Ukraine: From 1939 to 1941, 1.2 million people were deported from Western Ukraine to the Soviet East, including 400,000 Ukrainians . In addition, there was the organised relocation of labour to Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Emigration to countries outside the USSR was highly restricted under Soviet rule and restrictions where only eased somewhat from the 1970s onwards, providing especially emigration options for ethnic minorities like Germans and Jews who had relatives in non-Soviet countries.

Emigration trends since 1991

The fourth phase of emigration is associated with Ukraine’s independence in 1991. In response to economic hardship and political frustration, large numbers of Ukrainians have left since. Experts refer to more than six million people who left Ukraine after 2001 and did not come back . According to the Ukrainian State Statistics Service, 1.3 million Ukrainian migrant workers permanently left the country between 2015 and 2017 alone , several million more work temporarily abroad .

Over time, migration destinations of Ukrainians have changed significantly (see Figure 1). In the first years of independence, almost 85 percent of Ukrainian migrants lived in other former USSR countries (of which over three million, 65 percent, were in Russia). Thereafter, emigrants increasingly chose other destinations and the number of Ukrainian migrants in former USSR countries decreased from 4.6 in 1991 to 4.1 million in 2017. Instead, the number of Ukrainian migrants in the USA, Canada, Western and Central Europe, and Australia has risen from 0.7 in 1991 to at least 2.5 million in 2017 and their share in the total number of Ukrainians who moved abroad has increased from 13 percent to 38 percent . In total, 6.1 million Ukrainian migrants lived abroad in 2020, according to United Nations statistics, making Ukraine the eighth most significant country of origin in the world and, with regard to the GDP, one of the top recipients of migrant remittances in Europe (ten percent) .

Emigration after the Russian aggression in 2014

Russian military aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has spurred a new wave of emigration – the number of Ukrainians living in Russia increased from three to 3.3 million people . How many of them fled in direct response to fighting and occupation in Ukraine and how many are more likely to be labour migrants is disputed. There has also been a significant flow of Ukrainians to EU countries which is facilitated by visa-free travel introduced in 2017. In 2020, 601,200 Ukrainians received a first residence permit in the EU, making them the largest single national group (see figure 2). Therefore, Ukrainian migration to the EU was also the largest of all post-USSR migratory movements to the EU in 2020 . Since 2017, Poland, due to geographical proximity, extensive migration networks, and liberal residence and work permit regulations, has become the main destination country within the EU, hosting over 1.3 million Ukrainians in 2019, according to the Polish Statistical Office .

About 80 percent or 488,900 of those first residence permits issued to Ukrainian citizens in the EU in 2020 were issued by Polish authorities , followed by the Czech Republic (29,207) and Hungary (20.744). Ukrainians primarily entered the EU for work . Between 2009 and 2017, the number of Ukrainians studying abroad also increased by 186 percent reaching 77,424 students in 34 countries . The emigration of workers, experts and the youth is a large demographic and economic challenge for Ukraine.

Despite the war in Eastern Ukraine that started in 2014, relatively few Ukrainians sought asylum in the EU (34,400 in 2014/15) . Most displaced Ukrainians remained inside the country's borders. However, Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine triggered large-scale cross-border displacement. Poland and other European countries with large pre-invasion Ukrainian diasporas have become major destinations of Ukrainian refugees, specifically due to existing migrant networks. As of June 16, 2022, some 2.7 million people from Ukraine were registered as refugees in neighbouring countries alone, primarily in the Russian Federation (1.2 million) and Poland (1.2 million). Another 2.3 million refugees from Ukraine were registered in other European countries, particularly in Germany (780,000), the Czech Republic (374,000), and Italy (130,000) .

Migration and displacement within Ukraine

In 2014, in response to pro-democratic and pro-European protests in Ukraine, and the country's rapprochement with the West, Russia intervened militarily to support separatists in Eastern Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, and annex Crimea. Fierce fighting ensued, which continued in some form until the Russian invasion in 2022 .

Due to violence in Eastern Ukraine about 1.6 million people were internally displaced until November 2015 , of whom tens of thousands later returned to their usual places of residence. According to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine there were about 1.45 million internally displaced persons in April 2020 . Among those IDPs were 50,000 from Crimea. Crimea had a total population of two million before its annexation by Russia in 2014, 65 percent of whom were ethnic Russians. Internal displacement has escalated since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. At the end of May 2022, there were 7.1 million internally displaced persons in Ukraine , possibly making Ukraine the country with the largest number of IDPs in the world .

Immigration in Ukraine before Russia's invasion

Immigration to Ukraine during the Soviet era was mainly driven by migrants from other Soviet republics, whereas immigration from outside the USSR was highly restricted, for instance, to students from "befriended" countries, meaning other socialist countries. Soviet authorities pursued a policy of Russification which intensified Russian immigration to the territory of present-day Ukraine that had already been a major immigration trend in pre-Soviet times as the eastern part of Ukraine belonged to the Russian Empire. In 1989, 22 percent of Ukraine's population were ethnic Russians . After Ukraine's independence in 1991, this share dropped to about 17 percent .

Immigration flows in the first years of independence were driven by the return of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars from other former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Ukraine also hosted refugees who escaped ethnic conflicts and political oppression in the former Soviet republics, primarily Chechens but also some Uzbeks and Moldovans. In later years, migrants and refugees increasingly came from outside the former Soviet space, e.g. from Afghanistan. Ukraine is also an important transit country for migrations from East to West, for example for migrants and asylum seekers who try to enter the EU via Ukraine's borders with Slovakia, Hungary or Poland .

In total, in 2019 almost 400,000 foreigners held a residence permit in Ukraine. In addition, there was an unknown number of immigrants staying in the country irregularly . Registered foreign nationals included around about 80,000 international students (Indians, Moroccan, Nigerians were among the largest groups) . Another group were labour migrants, mostly highly skilled; 16,000 held a work permit, the largest group were Turkish nationals. Among those labour migrants, there were many citizens from Western countries such as EU-states, the US and Canada who came to Ukraine as business representatives, aid workers, embassy staff and language teachers, among others. Finally, there were also traders and business men and women from other parts of the world, China, Vietnam, Nigeria and others. In addition, there were several ten thousand foreign-born but naturalised refugees and immigrants, for example from Afghanistan, Russia (Chechnya) and various African countries. Of those five million international migrants counted in Ukraine by the United Nations in 2020, about 3.3 million originated from the Russian Federation, followed by 250,000 from Belarus, and 226,000 from Kazakhstan . Since the start of Russia's invasion, many immigrants have fled the country. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that more than 252,000 third country nationals alone have left Ukraine (as of 26 May 2022) .

The future of immigration to and emigration from Ukraine is uncertain – as is the future of the country itself. If and when Ukrainians and immigrants who have fled the country or are internally displaced will return to their usual places of residence in Ukraine highly depends on the further course and outcome of the war.