“There was a summer kitchen, a single bedroom, and a little hallway… and behind the wall lived the pigs and goats,” said Maryna Baliasnykova, an internally displaced Ukrainian. She described the accommodation her family was given by local authorities in western Ukraine after evacuation.
Baliasnykova, her husband, and their two children, aged six and three, fled Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city devastated by fighting and now occupied by Russian troops, in May 2022.
Since then, they have changed three temporary homes across Ukraine due to poor living conditions and other issues, eventually settling in a house in Kyiv Oblast gifted to them by the non-governmental organization Base UA.
There are currently nearly 5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ukraine, 3.6 million of whom left their homes during Russia’s full-scale war, according to the Social Policy Ministry, and others during the initial Russian invasion that started in 2014. Many, like Baliasnykova, depend on nongovernmental organizations for essential assistance, which the state often cannot provide promptly due to resource limitations or bureaucracy.
Experts told the Kyiv Independent that the most critical issues for IDPs include the lack of proper and affordable housing, financial instability, difficulties in finding employment, and deteriorating mental health.
Due to the insufficient support, some IDPs eventually return to their front-line or even occupied settlements, again facing the direct threats of the war. They also often share their post-evacuation hardships with relatives and friends still in dangerous areas, influencing their decisions about whether to evacuate.
This issue has become especially pertinent in recent months as Russia has been advancing in the east, forcing more people to flee their homes. Moscow will likely continue pushing across the front lines, setting the stage for further internal and external migration.
Accommodation
Temporary accommodation for evacuees is provided by local authorities, NGOs, and volunteers in host communities. IDPs are mostly placed in dormitories, renovated educational or medical facilities, unused houses, or modular towns.
Living conditions vary significantly from region to region, as unified standards for temporary accommodation were only approved by the government in September 2023, the East-SOS NGO told the Kyiv Independent. It has been evacuating residents from front-line areas since 2014, when Russia first invaded seizing the Crimean Peninsula and starting a war in the eastern Donbas region.
In a comment for the Kyiv Independent, the Reintegration Ministry said that as of late April living conditions in 38.6% of places of temporary residence for IDPs were brought in line with the requirements. The process will continue until the end of the year, the ministry added.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty wrote, citing data from the Reintegration Ministry, that as of early 2024, the state had provided housing for 54,610 internally displaced persons, while 22,474 places were vacant. According to the Reintegration Ministry, the gap between the number of IDPs and the provided accommodation could be explained by the fact that not all IDPs seek state support in housing and the number includes only temporary accommodation, which is “just one of several instruments of state assistance to IDPs.”
Most of the vacant places are in small settlements, explained Viktoriia Zolotukhina, executive director of the NGO Group of Influence, which monitors human rights violations and helps develop state policy on IDPs. Many IDPs are reluctant to move to these areas due to the lack of jobs and social infrastructure, she said.
"This includes kindergartens, schools, medical facilities, pharmacies… Providing a person with just a bed is not enough. Temporary placement often lasts months or even years, and without proper infrastructure, it's simply wrong to place people in such areas," Zolotukhina added.
Many IDPs stay in temporary accommodation for extended periods partly due to a severe shortage of permanent housing, according to Oleksandra Sakharuk, co-founder of the Ne Sami (“Not Alone” in Ukrainian) NGO, which assists people from front-line settlements with evacuation and resettlement.
"If we are doing mandatory evacuation, we as a society must create housing for them. It is crucial that this housing be permanent to avoid retraumatizing people (by making them move again) and to help them feel that it's their own space," she told the Kyiv Independent.
"In addition to being permanent, the accommodation must be of good quality, which we are seriously lacking right now."
Baliasnykova, whose family now enjoys having a whole house to themselves, said, "It's much easier to adapt when you are not in someone else's house… when you realize that no one will kick you out, no one will bother you."
The Ukrainian government is still developing a state-level strategy to build more permanent housing for IDPs, according to Zolotukhina. Local authorities have been implementing such projects, often funded by international donors, on their initiative. But, she added, there is no communication between communities to share and scale best practices.
These issues force many IDPs to rent housing, which consumes a large portion of their income. Some landlords are hesitant to rent to IDPs, fearing they might return home soon or be unable to pay consistently.
To improve the housing situation, the government is compensating utility payments for landlords who host IDPs for free and developing a mechanism of housing rental subsidies so that IDPs pay no more than 20-30% of their family income for rent.
Jobs and financial stability
The issues of housing and employment are closely linked, said Zolotukhina. “Financial stability allows a person to maintain a certain standard of living, including housing. On the other hand, without housing, it’s difficult for them to find a job because basic needs must be met first.”
“We see this dilemma when an IDP has to choose between living in a village or small town where housing is free or cheap, but there are no job opportunities, and moving to larger cities with more vacancies but higher housing costs,” she added.
Another challenge arises when individuals from industrial regions like Donbas or agricultural areas like Kherson Oblast move to places with different economic focuses, rendering their skills less relevant.
The government is providing tax reimbursements for employers who hire IDPs and the State Employment Service offers free retraining courses for those seeking new qualifications. However, these efforts are insufficient to significantly increase employment levels among IDPs, according to Zolotukhina.
The Ministry of Social Policy said in January that only 40% of working-age IDPs were employed. To encourage job-seeking, the ministry limited the number of people eligible for social support payments starting March 1.
Previously, each adult IDP received Hr 2,000 (around $50) monthly, and each child received Hr 3,000 ($75) from the state. Over half of the IDPs surveyed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission in Ukraine in November-December 2023 reported a lack of funds and financial support.
“Living on our pension is impossible. Even with IDP payments, it’s still not enough,” said Nina Krasovska, a retired woman who fled Velyki Prokhody village in Kharkiv Oblast during the latest Russian offensive with her husband and daughter, who has a disability.
“Medical assistance is not available to us. It’s difficult to buy food, especially meat. The child (her granddaughter) is growing up and needs new clothes,” added Krasovska, whose family now resides in the city of Kharkiv.
The Reintegration Ministry said that it was developing a separate strategy to increase employment levels among IDPs that should be approved by the end of the year.
Mental health
An equally major challenge for integrating IDPs into host communities is their deteriorated psychological state after enduring constant bombardment, Russian occupation, and the loss of loved ones and homes.
"We often hear from humanitarian organizations and authorities that some IDPs do not want to work and adapt; they just want to receive social payments … Yes, there is a certain percentage of such people, as in any other country, but often a person's reluctance to work is confused with the fact that they are under stress," said Zolotukhina.
"Some can experience this stress for a month, others for years. Not understanding this, people often mistake it for laziness or unwillingness (to work)."
The World Health Organization (WHO) expects that about 9.6 million people in Ukraine "may have a mental health condition" due to the impact of Russia's war. Almost 30% of IDPs in partially occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast identified psychological support as their most urgent need, according to the IOM Ukraine report.
The government implements regional programs of socio-psychological assistance while many Ukrainian and international NGOs also provide psychological support to IDPs, but the country's mental health system struggles to meet the increasing demand amid shortages of qualified personnel.
"We are all mentally ill," said Krasovska, whose village was heavily impacted by Russian glide bomb attacks, destroying her family home. "These air bombs scared me a lot. Everything turns into crumbs. The earth is burning."
Krasovska’s daughter, with a disability, developed a chronic cough because of the extreme stress. Despite having sleepless nights due to almost daily Russian air strikes on Kharkiv, Krasovska said she doesn’t want to leave the city for safer parts of Ukraine because she would rather stay closer to home and her other daughter, who lives in Kharkiv.
This is Krasovska’s second displacement. In the early days of the full-scale war, her village was temporarily occupied, and her family had to evacuate through Russia. She returned to Velyki Prokhody then and hopes to return again. However, Krasovska fears she will not have the strength to rebuild her house yet another time.
"Every day begins with checking Telegram (news channels) to see if the shelling has ended (in her village), if our troops have gone on the offensive,” she said.
“This is no life."
Note from the author:
This is Dinara Khalilova, I wrote this piece for you. The displacement of millions of Ukrainians is a horrible consequence of Russia’s war. But, unfortunately, it is only one of many aspects of the full-scale invasion that will be affecting Ukrainian society for years to come. We aim to provide you with a bigger picture, but for that, we need your support.
