Large-scale war did not cause displacement surge, but accelerated ongoing process

The newly created body is supposed to deal with the return of Ukrainians who were forced to leave abroad with the start of the large-scale invasion. It will also establish and maintain contacts with the Ukrainian diaspora. That is, with those Ukrainians who do not want to return for various reasons.

The need for such a state structure and, accordingly, systematic work to bring millions of Ukrainian citizens home has been raised regularly by concerned politicians in recent years. They are right to do so, by the way. The problem is that the large-scale Russian invasion is not the main reason for the mass migration of Ukrainians abroad and their settlement there.

I'm getting close to a very dangerous topic: I won't say a significant, but certainly not a small part of those who left in the first days and weeks of the great war had long been making similar plans. And the programmes for refugees and IDPs that started working in the EU and beyond with the start of the large-scale Russian invasion simply made it easier. And that is significant.

There is no need to pay for housing, at least for some time. There is a living wage, even if there are bureaucratic problems with issuing bank cards that are unusual for Ukrainians. There are job offers and free language courses. Active Ukrainians, having received a fishing rod rather than a fish, will do the rest.

Here is an eloquent example, in my opinion. November 2022, Lithuania, the small town of Anikščiai. Ukrainians who fled the war were welcomed there with joy. They were offered a dormitory and job opportunities. I met a resident of Zaporizhzhia who had taken her three children and left her husband of military age behind. In six months, she was able to move out of the dormitory and into a separate house, where she pays only for utilities. She bought a car for 700 euros. She works as a fitness trainer and is quite popular.

But there are other fellow citizens. Those who complain about their small payments, stubbornly refuse to work, and enjoy good treatment from all sides. And the husbands who came to visit their wives boast that they hid when the Ukrainian army was forced to retreat, spent a little time under occupation, then snuck through Russia and Belarus to Poland and from there to Lithuania. This is how they deceived two armies.

The question, as they say, comes with an asterisk: Will the Ministry of Demography and Diaspora bring the woman back home? And will it have the influence and resources to bring back other, alternative categories of our fellow citizens? You can predict the answer yourself. I would add that a community dependent on welfare and unwilling to contribute is hardly a vital or promising one for the development of our post-war country. As for people like the active woman, if they do return, it will likely be within a span of 5 to 10 years.

This is the opinion of Andriy Haidutskyi, an expert on migration policy and Doctor of Economics. He believes that the millions of Ukrainians who left after February 24, 2024, are effectively lost to Ukraine. Instead, he argues it is more practical to focus on a few hundred thousand active individuals who could potentially return, accumulate start-up capital, and contribute to the country's economic recovery. Importantly, Mr. Haidutskyi calls not for action from a hypothetical ministry, but for the active involvement of individual local communities in facilitating the return process.

According to research conducted in 2021 by the American Gallup agency, 31% of Ukrainians would already like to change their country of residence. These are the 6 million who have realised their intentions since the start of the large-scale war. Even without Russian bombs and missiles, they had plans to emigrate.

The outflow of Ukrainians actually began in the early years of independence. Recall the slogan of the mid-1990s: “There are 52 million of us.” Now, look at how much fewer Ukrainians were by March 2014, when Russia's war against Ukraine started. At that time, there was no concept of creating a Ministry of Demography and Diaspora. The decline in Ukraine's population was noticed by many, but only a few raised the alarm.

This is yet another proof that the large-scale war is a significant, but not the main reason for emigration. Since the beginning of 2024, according to a recent macroeconomic report by the National Bank, almost 400,000 Ukrainians have left the country. So, two years of almost daily air raids and the risk of being killed by missile strikes did not frighten these people. Why did they leave now? Has it become more dangerous?

No, everything is much simpler. There is something else: publications about the gradual reduction of programs for Ukrainian refugees. That is, about the closing of the window of opportunity to get a place "over there." The statement by Ukraine's new Minister of Culture, Mykola Tochytskyi, is directly related to this: every fifth cultural figure, not necessarily an artist, does not return from European, American and other trips. This is as of now. I'll repeat: until now, the "non-returnees" in Ukraine at war seemed to be satisfied with everything.

And finally, there are the lamentations of the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Oksen Lisovyi, about the active departure of high school students from Ukraine. Of course, we are talking about young men under the age of 18. Ukrainians with the means have long sent their children to study in Europe and the United States, back in peacetime. And after graduation, having mastered the languages, young Ukrainians did not return home.

Now, the non-return has been compounded by a factor recently voiced by Vitaliy Portnikov in a conversation with Serhiy Zhadan: "Those who stay in Ukraine should know that they can send their children and grandchildren to the next war." And sociologist Oleksiy Antypovych says that young Ukrainians are gradually losing faith that they can fulfil themselves at home. Indeed, what to believe in, what plans to make if you can get mobilized tomorrow...

Either I'm mistaken, or the Ministry of Demography and Diaspora won't be able to address all the issues outlined above, or all of the issues in general. At least because the quality of education, economic development, freedom of doing business, and the aforementioned mobilization, or rather irreversible militarization, are definitely not within its competence. For thirty years now, Ukrainians have been leaving their homeland not because of the war, but because they want to and can. The war, unfortunately, has given more opportunities not to hold on to the place of birth or even citizenship. And the return and birth rate do not directly depend on the date of the end of active hostilities.

Peace is very important. It is the first wish of every normal person. But no less important are the prospects. It was their vagueness that provoked the departure from the country of those who, even before the war, were looking for a better life. It makes sense to talk about the creation of a Ministry of Ukrainian Perspectives in the wake of the creation of the Ministry.

Exclusively for Espreso.

About the author: Andriy Kokotiukha, writer, screenwriter.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.