Variation #12
By KS Lack
Print: Artist Proof 6/10
Frame: empty frame, suitcase
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, over 6.5 million Ukrainians have become Global Refugees, while and additional 3.7 million have been displaced within Ukraine as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). These numbers do not include the approximately 1.5 million people displaced from the 2014 Crimean Invasion and subsequent Russo-Ukrainian war.(A,B) In total, close to 12 million people—one in four Ukrainians—have been displaced by Russian aggression since 2014. There are now documented Ukrainian refugees in over 44 different countries. Many people have been displaced multiple times to multiple places.
This mass displacement has taken an incredible physical and psychological toll on the Ukrainian people. Being forced to abandon one’s home, often with only a few belongings, is heart-wrenching and traumatic. The physical hardship of fleeing from areas under attack is compounded for those caring for children, the ill, or the elderly.
Becoming a refugee in foreign country is never easy. Meeting basic needs can be a struggle in unfamiliar places. Employment is hard to come by when one do not speak the host country’s language. The language barrier also complicates the reintegration of children into schools.(C) Many Ukrainians refugees are stuck in limbo—unable to move forward but unable to go home.
Opting to relocate within Ukraine as an IDP presents its own set of challenges. While language and cultural barriers may not exist, the same difficulties of finding housing and employment remain. Additionally, the constant threat of Russian airstrikes, regardless of location within Ukraine, means that no one is ever truly safe. This ongoing danger has taken a heavy toll on the Ukrainian people, with the nation as a whole grappling with widespread stress and trauma disorders. Multiple NGOs are working in-country to provide assistance, but there is only so much they can do while he root cause of this suffering—Russia’s invasion—continues.
Russia is waging a scorched-earth war: it will take billions of dollars and decades of work to make the areas they have invaded safe and livable again.(D) This is not the first time the world has witnessed a mass exodus from war zones in Ukraine. History has shown us that few who fled in the past ever returned. When will this cycle of bloodshed end? When will Ukrainians finally be free to go home without fear of annihilation?
A) For more on the Crimean invasion, see Variation #5 and #24.
B) For more on the Russo-Ukrainian war, see Variation #27.
C) For more on Russia’s attack on Ukrainian children, see Variation #1.
D) For more on Russia’s scorched-earth policy of invasion, see Variation #26.
See below for further reading and background.
Operational Data Portal—Ukraine Refugee Situation, UN Refugee Agency, Updated numbers from 12 Jun 24.
Migration Data Portal—Crisis Movements, International Organization for Migration, Numbers from December 2023.
National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, March 2020 Report.
This number does not account for Third Country Nationals (TCNs), approximately 6 million who were recorded living in Ukraine in 2020. It believed that over one million TCNs have also been displaced, but this number is hard to track.
What Ukraine Has Lost, The New York Times, 3 Jun 24.