Returning men of draft age to Ukraine is "ethically ambiguous" and Ukraine will thus have to "take the in initiative" in the process, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview with Polish channel TVN24 on April 27.
Poland will help Ukraine bring its military-aged men back following new changes to passport and consular service laws for Ukrainian men living abroad, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on April 24.
The collapse of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last year due to Russia’s war brought the entire country to its knees. And while Ukraine was, for the most part, spared from widespread blackouts this winter, Russian forces are once again targeting critical infrastructure. Russia resumed missile and drone attacks on
The agreement entails "enhanced cooperation for Ukraine's reconstruction, personal data protection, digitalization, and cybersecurity," the ministry said. It will also help "improve migration," as well as "border policies and processes."
Warsaw will neither encourage nor prevent the return of Ukrainian refugees to Ukraine, Polish Ambassador to Kyiv Jaroslaw Guzy said in an interview with Deutsche Welle published on March 13. Poland hosts around 1 million Ukrainians who fled from Russia's all-out war, the highest number of all countries.
Editor’s Note: This story was sponsored by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian non-profit organization. The story is written according to the Kyiv Independent’s ethical standards and language guidelines. Everyone in the 40-million nation of Ukraine has had their lives disrupted by Russia’s 2022 invasion,
Olha Pankova, 39, had hoped to spend the rest of her life in Avdiivka. She had built a lovely home for herself and her children and wanted to grow old in the small Donetsk Oblast town, once home to almost 30,000 residents. But that was before Russia turned her
Editor’s Note: The young people featured in this article are either quoted by first name at their family’s request for privacy reasons or, in the case of service members active on the front line, for their safety. “The past two years have flown by. It’s hard to
Over 14 million people, nearly a third of Ukraine's population, have been forced to flee their homes in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Feb. 22.
Polish President Andrzej Duda signed the act on the protection of Ukrainian refugees, extending the legality of their stay from March 4 until June 30, Poland's Presidential Office said on Feb. 20.
The High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released a report on Feb. 20 detailing the situation regarding Ukrainian refugees and appealed for $993 million to fund its support for those displaced by the full-scale war.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Geert Wilders said that Ukrainians are coming to the Netherlands not to flee from the full-scale war but instead to receive benefits from the Dutch government.
Over 200,000 Ukrainians have migrated to the U.K. since March 2022, with the first visas set to expire in March 2025.
With its minimalist lines, pale wood, and clean design, Kyiv-based architect studio Balbek Bureau’s project looks like another sleek-looking interior for a cozy coffee shop in the capital. And yet, it’s temporary housing for refugees. In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian architecture studios conceived promising
ZAPORIZHZHIA – Stuck between a worksite frozen in time and a highway facing the Dnipro River, the volunteer’s center was not easy to find. The anonymous building hardly betrayed any sign of human activity from the outside. Everything was wrapped in an eerie silence until a door opened, spilling a
Viktoria Vozna, 25, had always enjoyed her quiet life in native Brovary, a city just east of Kyiv, and dreamed of raising her own children there one day. She never wanted to live abroad, but Russia’s brutal war forced her out of the country. After saving up enough money
Vitallia Mazur, 32, with her then 1-month-old daughter, escaped to Italy in early March, a week after Russian missiles began raining down on Ukrainian cities. Two months later, they returned to Vinnytsia: “My daughter has been growing up so fast. She started to get used to the environment, to people
Editor's Note: Natalia Datskevych is a journalist with the Kyiv Independent. An endless feeling of fear that seems to never go away. Every loud sound, every sudden spark in the sky, causes panic. My life, together with the lives of millions of Ukrainians, turned into hell when Russia launched a
Millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee their homes as Russian forces continue to bombard residential areas across the country. While more than 3 million have gone abroad, many have relocated to western Ukraine, which is currently safer than the rest of the country. English teacher Oleksiy Shpak and
While Ukrainian forces have, so far, successfully held off the Russian troops from taking Kyiv, the towns around the capital have become some of the most intense battlegrounds of the ongoing war. Russia seized the outlying suburban towns with vehicles and infantry, setting up checkpoints and, in many cases, cutting
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 836,000 people have left Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24. With Russian troops shelling Ukrainian cities, hitting schools, kindergartens and nurseries, hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing to Ukraine's westerns frontiers. Despite
Ukraine and Poland opened two new pedestrian refugee crossings overnight, reducing the long queues of people fleeing on foot, according to Deputy Interior Minister Mary Akopyan. “There are still a lot of cars,” she told the Kyiv Independent. “But the pedestrian queues are no longer so extreme.” On Feb. 28,
Tears streamed down Margaryta Chornobryvets's face as she entered a refugee hostel in Krakow, Poland. The 16-year-old from Kyiv, was now safe from the bombs and rockets unleashed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine on Feb. 24 but desperate at being separated from her family. "My mother brought me
