This publication is part of Ukrainian Voices, a Carnegie Europe project that sheds light on Ukraine’s political and social dynamics by highlighting the perspectives of local experts.
Ukraine faces a significant problem of internally displaced persons (IDPs). The number of IDPs in the country has grown quickly since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, with an estimated 3.7 million more registered in February 2024 than in 2021. While this number continues to fluctuate as a result of Russia’s ongoing aggression, it is estimated that as many as one in ten of Ukraine’s preinvasion population has been uprooted but not moved abroad. Women and children are disproportionately affected by the war, as is exemplified by Russia’s many attacks on maternity hospitals in Ukraine and the exodus of Ukrainian women and children since 2022.
Yet, amid the many headline-grabbing humanitarian tragedies, the experiences and perspectives of Ukraine’s IDPs have largely been ignored. The key question that IDPs face in such a conflict is whether—and how—they wish to return home when opportunities arise for them to do so. This question is highly politicized, and discussions of it often take place without the involvement of those directly affected. Whereas the media and governments tend to strongly maintain the narrative that displaced people eventually plan to return home, IDPs’ own perceptions and experiences often remain invisible in policy decisions.
This article therefore draws on fifty in-depth interviews conducted in August–September 2023 with internally displaced Ukrainian women to explore the factors that motivate their desires to either return home or integrate into their host communities. These factors range from the conditions of these communities to the trauma experienced during their displacement. Crucially, the Ukrainian government will need to focus on IDPs’ unique experiences to respond effectively to the challenges of internal displacement—both to address the immediate needs of those displaced and to rebuild disrupted communities in a sustainable way.
In illuminating the perspectives of internally displaced Ukrainian women, this investigation is critical for the implementation of repatriation and integration policies as well as for a better understanding of the direct impacts of the conflict in the country. The study also elevates displaced Ukrainian women’s voices, which have been noticeably absent from the international discourse on the Russia-Ukraine war.
To Return or Integrate?
National governments face an immensely difficult challenge in determining whether and how to facilitate the integration of IDPs into host communities or enable their safe return home. In large part, this is because there is no single or globally accepted definition, theory, or model of integration. The lived experiences and official documentation of displaced people also vary greatly, and there is no clear understanding of when a person ceases to be displaced, as they may follow variable paths of resettlement.
For instance, some people do not officially register as displaced or may move abroad for some time—either documented or undocumented—or temporarily return to their homes. The UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee outlines in its Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons that “durable solutions” are achieved following protracted displacement “when IDPs no longer have any specific assistance and protection needs that are linked to their displacement and can enjoy their human rights without discrimination on account of their displacement.”
Several scholars have nevertheless highlighted the benefits of integrating displaced people into their host communities. For example, research about IDPs in six countries in Africa, Europe, and Latin America has shown that local integration and the development of a sense of sociocultural belonging can foster long-term social cohesion. The experiences of IDPs in Georgia, who were victims of the country’s conflicts in the 1990s, also reveal that problems can arise when government policies prioritize nonintegration and keep displaced people in a state of limbo with clear boundaries between them and nondisplaced communities.
These cases underscore how treating IDPs’ situations as temporary can serve as a barrier to both their integration and their return. However, it is ultimately the lived experiences of IDPs that shape their intentions and decisions about whether to return home when conditions allow. Yet, these perspectives remain largely overlooked in both academic and policy discourses.
Experiences of Internally Displaced Ukrainian Women
Since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government has largely prioritized the integration of IDPs into their new localities. Although the government has stressed that these short- and medium-term measures do not fully address the situation of IDPs, the steps taken have met their basic needs, ensured their access to services, and strengthened the capacity of communities to receive them.
But even while responding to the urgent needs and quickly growing number of IDPs, the Ukrainian government’s strategy treats their situation—and that of Ukrainian refugees abroad—as temporary. The government’s State Policy Strategy on Internal Displacement Until 2025 mentions integration as a strategic goal, yet the emphasis is on supporting “persons who intend to return to their former place of residence,” which sends an ambiguous message and suggests a sense of temporariness about their lives in their host communities. The government even uses the term “temporary” to define several aspects of IDPs’ lives: their temporary displacement from temporarily occupied territories, their resettlement in temporary homes, and their acquisition of temporary jobs.
Yet, because the return of Ukraine’s IDPs may not be viable in the immediate future, some individuals may not treat their own displacement as temporary and plan to integrate into their host communities rather than wait to return home. It is therefore critical to recognize IDPs’ own perspectives on their displacement.
Returning Home
The experiences of the internally displaced Ukrainian women interviewed in this study generally confirm prior research on IDPs and the premises of the Ukrainian government’s policy of return. Most of the women—thirty-four of the fifty respondents—said they eventually wanted to return home. At the same time, many were apprehensive about doing so, revealing important nuances about IDPs’ experiences of displacement.
Several women from cities now or previously occupied by Russia, for instance, disclosed their desires, and even their plans, to return before the war ends. One woman noted, “We are even considering returning earlier, before the end of the war, as soon as the front line is pushed back a little so that our house is not within the reach of Russian artillery. Now, it is very easy to get killed by shelling.” Likewise, another woman explained that she planned to return home soon, stating that she had not done so yet only because there was no running water in her hometown. She stressed that “as soon as my native town has water and it is quieter than now [less shelling], we will return there.”
In addition to their personal security, both material and psychological, several participants explained that the safety of their children was a key consideration. One woman said, “I have to be sure that there will be no shelling at night and that my children can fall asleep and get up as usual.” Other women also confirmed they planned to return home but only once the war had ended, as it would only be then that they would truly feel safe. Many of their comments were similar to those of a woman who stated that she intended to return “only after the end of the war and the victory of Ukraine.”
In stark contrast, other interviewees cited the situations in their hometowns as the reason why they plan never to return. In addition to the risk of Russian occupation, many interlocutors recalled harrowing events, such as mass killings of citizens and significant infrastructural damage, when explaining why they did not want to associate their future lives with the places they had left. For example, one woman soberly explained that “Mariupol is graves, bombed-out houses. It is impossible to live there. How can I return there?”
Another woman described the tense atmosphere in her home city and the divisions that would remain after the war: “I do not understand how we can return to Berdiansk. Children remained there who had already gone to a Russian school. I do not understand how, after de-occupation, our children can go to the same class [as] those who have been brainwashed.” She detailed her personal concerns about the social atmosphere if she were to return to her hometown, saying, “I don’t know how I will be able to return; most of my neighbors have not left and therefore I do not understand how I will be able to communicate with them when I know that they ratted us out.”
Other participants mentioned ecological destruction and environmental threats as their reasons for not returning home. For example, a woman displaced from Enerhodar, a town near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, described returning as undesirable for her and her two children because of the possibility of nuclear accidents. Another respondent from the southern city of Nova Kakhovka admitted that she had considered returning but changed her mind after the June 2023 destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, stating that “similar or even worse catastrophes may happen in the future. You never know what to prepare for when Russia is your neighbor.”
Echoing these views was a woman who had moved from Berdiansk to Ternopil. She articulated her fears about returning to Berdiansk by explaining that her hometown would “always have such an abnormal neighbor as Russia nearby, and living so close to these psychos is simply dangerous. Apart from this, everything is mined there, it will be unsafe even after de-occupation for a very long time. Therefore, we do not see ourselves there, even if the war is over.”
Another woman from the same city outlined that her decision not to return was connected to her anxieties about land mines—concerns also reported by many other respondents. She said that no one had told her how long it would take to remove all the land mines near her hometown: “Demining might take decades, so I see no point in putting my life on hold and waiting to return.” This interlocutor, like many others, admitted that while she wanted to return home with her family at some point, she had accepted that it might never be possible.
Local Integration
As the war continues, many internally displaced women have opted to settle and integrate into their host communities rather than planning or waiting to return to their hometowns. Several interviewees explained that they had made this decision because they felt safe and at home in their new communities. A woman who had moved from Kyiv to Lviv, for example, noted, “I have fallen in love with Lviv, and despite the more enhanced protection for Kyiv from Western antimissile systems now, I would like to stay here [in Lviv] even after the end of the war.”
Notably, most interviewees confirmed they had been welcomed by their host communities. A woman now living in Odesa affirmed that she had met “friendly people” there and had “never encountered any incidents with locals or felt any discomfort” because of her status as internally displaced. Perhaps unsurprisingly, and in line with other research, interlocutors often explained they felt a greater sense of comfort and integration in communities that had only small linguistic and cultural differences with those they had left. This was the case especially for women who had moved from Kherson or Mykolaiv to Odesa, from Kharkiv to Kyiv, or from Mariupol to Dnipro.
Others mentioned that a sense of familiarity and prior experiences had motivated their decisions to move to and integrate into certain communities. Their comments often chimed with those of a participant who explained that she had moved to Odesa because she already knew people there: “I feel comfortable here. I used to spend my summer vacation in Odesa before the start of the war. Of course, now it is not so safe but at least it is not occupied. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances here, and I do not feel a stranger.”
Of the women who did not have preexisting attachments to their host communities, those who expressed a willingness to adapt to their new contexts regularly disclosed that they wanted to integrate. For example, one woman stated that she went from speaking Russian to Ukrainian after moving to Lviv: “I immediately switched to Ukrainian. In the very beginning, local people sometimes approached me and made compliments on my speech, which meant that I spoke well but with an accent. Now, people say that I speak without an accent.” Another woman, who described the high level of support and hospitality she had received from locals in Lviv Oblast, also stated that she switched to speaking Ukrainian to integrate faster. Notably, participants below the age of thirty generally expressed more willingness than older interlocutors to integrate into communities with greater linguistic and cultural dissimilarities from their hometowns.
Barriers to Integration
Even though many displaced Ukrainian women wish to integrate into their host communities, several included in this study still emphasized that significant barriers prevented them from doing so effectively. While they viewed the main obstacles to their integration differently, most mentioned material challenges. The cost of living and difficulties in renting apartments in western Ukraine were among the most significant hurdles cited. Some participants admitted that high living costs had prompted them to consider moving home, even though their hometowns are currently occupied by Russian forces.
As one woman in the western city of Chernivtsi explained, “it is hard to rent a flat here, it costs a lot of money and I do not want to waste money this way if I have my own house in Donetsk.” Another woman revealed that some of her neighbors had been forced to return to Luhansk because they could not afford rent in western Ukraine and struggled to find work due to their limited Ukrainian-language skills and the low number of suitable employment opportunities.
Respondents also mentioned the unfamiliar social environment in their host communities as a factor that hindered their integration. Many women admitted they felt uncomfortable speaking to local people because they felt they had nothing in common to discuss. One woman explained that she thought the war was perceived differently by IDPs and locals in her community: displaced people have directly experienced the conflict, including the destruction of their houses and towns, while host communities in western Ukraine have seen it only on TV and social media. She asserted that local people “live their own lives. They do not understand what war is. They are very far from all the atrocities, murders, and destruction. They cannot even imagine the scale of what has happened.”
Similar sentiments were voiced by other interlocutors, such as a woman from the eastern city of Makiivka who moved first to Berdiansk in the southeast and then to Ivano-Frankivsk in the west. She explained that she had decided to move to Bucha shortly after settling in Ivano-Frankivsk because she felt she “could only stay in Frankivsk for two months.” As soon as she moved to Bucha, she “felt an absolutely different attitude from the locals. They saw the war; it was very close to them and therefore they do not differentiate between IDPs and locals.” Even though Ukrainians share citizenship and, in many cases, speak the same language, this woman—like several others in this study—admitted they felt that experiences of the war had prompted social divisions across the country.
A small number of interviewees also disclosed they felt they had been treated negatively by people in their host communities. When sharing their stories, several women stated they had been called pereselenka (displaced)—a colloquialism commonly used to refer to internally displaced women from eastern Ukraine. Many participants stressed they took offense at being called pereselenka and felt that it was demeaning and degrading. A woman from Sievierodonetsk now living in the western city of Mukachevo was particularly vocal: “When a woman moves from one city to another voluntarily, no one calls her pereselenka. But when the change of home is not a voluntary process, why do they stick this label [on her]?”
Several other women said that they felt the term pereselenka and its connotations had created divisions in Ukrainian society. According to an interlocutor from Mariupol now living in Ivano-Frankivsk, the term “stirs envy among locals, who can see that all the support is provided to IDPs. It does not work for the benefit of IDPs either as they are used to receiving humanitarian aid instead of looking for opportunities to earn money.”
Hence, the experiences of the Ukrainian women interviewed reveal that using the label “displaced” to refer to those on the move separates them from local people, despite their desire to be perceived as members of the same community. As one interlocutor stressed, “I do not want to be pointed at and regarded as pereselenka. The state should unite us, not create extra services or benefits for IDPs.” These views reveal that the experiences of Ukraine’s IDPs in their host communities also greatly influence their intentions to integrate or return home.
Final Thoughts
The decisions of IDPs to either return home or integrate into their host communities hinge on a variety of factors, including their living conditions, economic opportunities, personal and family security, and experiences of displacement. The varied and nuanced views of female Ukrainian IDPs also confirm that a one-size-fits-all approach to displacement by governments is inadequate. In some cases, returning to one’s home may be desirable but not possible, while in others, integration may be considered undesirable but inevitable. In other instances still, integration may be welcome.
By elevating the voices of internally displaced Ukrainian women, this research therefore helps observers and policymakers better understand their diverse challenges and aspirations as well as possible ways forward. Critically, the views of the interviewees in this study demonstrate that IDPs are not a monolithic group. Their settlement preferences are based on their own experiences and personal circumstances. Prioritizing either the return or the integration of displaced people in government policies may thus be harmful for IDPs and host communities alike. Instead, policies must emphasize the unique experiences and perspectives of those directly affected.
The approaches taken by host communities and local people are also crucial in determining whether displaced people will integrate or return home. As this study examined only the perspectives of forcibly moved women, further research could therefore explore the views of host communities to better unpack these dynamics. Doing so would ensure that reconstruction efforts in Ukraine are based on the real needs and aspirations of all community members and lead to more sustainable and ethical development.
To address its significant problem of internally displaced persons, Ukraine thus requires a holistic approach that recognizes diverse pathways to resettlement, the nuanced needs of IDPs, and the role of host communities. As the views of IDPs have generally been overlooked, integrating their unique insights into policymaking is critical for the development of more effective and inclusive solutions that promote resilience, support mutual understanding, and foster long-term social cohesion.
Marnie Howlett is a departmental lecturer in Russian and East European politics at Oxford’s School of Global and Area Studies and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.
Daryna Dvornichenko is a visiting research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.
This research is partly supported by the British Academy’s Researchers at Risk fellowship scheme.