Since February 2022, over 19m Ukrainians have fled their country. Almost half probably remain spread across the world, most of them in Europe. They are considered temporary refugees – but are they really temporary? Where are these people, and what challenges face their host countries?
First in this episode, we'll hear from Aleksandra and Michał Miszułowicz, a couple in Poland who helped resettled thousands of Ukrainian refugees as soon as the conflict began in 2022.
Host Maggie Perzyna then turns to two academic experts to explore the situation of Ukrainian refugees: Izabela Grabowska, professor of social sciences at Kozminski University in Poland, where she is also director of the Centre for Research on Social Change and Human Mobility (CRASH), and Yuliya Kosyakova, professor of migration research at the Otto Friedrich University Bamberg and head of the research department at the Research Institute of the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg, Germany.
Maggie is a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration & Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University and this podcast is Borders & Belonging. In it, Maggie talks to leading experts from around the world and people with on-the-ground experience to explore the individual experiences of migrants: the difficult decisions and many challenges they face on their journeys.
She and her guests will also think through the global dimensions of migrants’ movement: the national policies, international agreements, trends of war, climate change, employment and more.
Borders & Belonging brings together hard evidence with stories of human experience to kindle new thinking in advocacy, policy and research.
Top researchers contribute articles that complement each podcast with a deeper dive into the themes discussed.
Borders & Belonging is a co-production between the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University and openDemocracy. The podcast was produced by LEAD Podcasting, Toronto, Ontario.
Show notesBelow, you will find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.
Art and documentary‘Arts of war: Ukrainian artists confront Russia’, by Blair Ruble, Wilson Centre (2023)
‘Children caught up in the Ukraine War’, by DW Documentary (2023)
‘Defying Russian missiles and Soviet censors, Ukrainian art goes on show’, by Scott Rayburn, New York Times (23 November 2022)
‘How Ukrainian refugees in Poland are coping a year on from the war’, by BBC Newsnight (2023)
‘Ukrainian refugees in Russia’, by ARTE.tv Documentary (2022)
‘Uprooted’, by Andzej Gavriss, Creative Agency Don’t Panic, for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (2022)
Donate or get involved!Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
International Medical Corps
Razom for Ukraine
UNHCR
United Nations Population Fund
Women for Women International
Media‘Even once female Ukrainian refugees reach safety, they face new burdens as single heads of household’, by Dilek Cindoglu, The Conversation (25 February 2022)
‘Invisible’ migrants Ukrainian refugees in Poland brace themselves for a long war’, by Kristina Safonova, Meduza (9 March 2023)
‘Lessons from history for our response to Ukrainian refugees’, by Sascha Becker, VoxEU (29 March 2022)
‘One year after the Russian invasion, insecurity clouds return intentions of displaced Ukrainians’, by UNHCR (23 February 2023)
‘One year on, volunteers in Poland are still doing all they can for Ukrainian refugees’, by Rafał Kostrzyński, UNHCR (22 February 2023)
‘Poland’s hospitality is helping many Ukrainian refugees thrive – 5 takeaways’, by Patrice McMahon, The Conversation (2 March 2023)
‘Refugees from Ukraine face considerable uncertainty about their future’, by Christiane Keitel and Jutta Winters, IAB-Forum (2 March 2023)
‘'There is no time to grieve': Ukrainian refugees arriving in Warsaw focus on helping each other’, by Margo McDiarmid, CBC News (13 March 2022)
‘Ukraine exposes Europe’s double standards for refugees’, by Emily Venturi and Anna Iasmi Vallianatou, Chatham House (30 March 2022)
‘Ukrainian refugees need security. EU’s temporary protection can’t give it’, by Zeynep Şahin Mencütek, openDemocracy (11 March 2022)
‘Ukrainian women in Poland—an insecure sanctuary’, by Marta Kucharska, Social Europe (16 September 2022)
‘We understand what war means’: Poles rush to aid Ukraine’s refugees’, by Lorenzo Tondo and Weronika Strzyżyńska, The Guardian (5 March 2022)
Research projects and policy‘Canada launches new temporary residence pathway to welcome those fleeing the war in Ukraine’, by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Government of Canada (17 March 2022)
‘Council Directive 2001/55/EC’, Eur-lex
‘How large will the Ukrainian refugee flow be, and which EU countries will they seek refuge in?’, by Mikael Elinder, Oscar Erixson and Olle Hammar, Delmi Policy Brief, 3 (2022)
‘Integrating refugees and asylum seekers into the German economy and society: empirical evidence and policy objectives’, by Herbert Brücker, Philipp Jaschke and Juliya Kosyakova, Migration Policy Institute (December 2019)
‘Lives on Hold: Intentions and Perspectives of Refugees from Ukraine #3’, by UNHCR and Ipsos (22 February 2023)
‘Operational data portal: Ukraine refugee situation’, by UNHCR
‘Poland’s civil society is caught between Russia and the West’, by Paweł Marczewski (30 November 2022)
‘Preliminary findings from an online survey of Ukrainian refugees in Germany and Poland’, by Steffen Pötzschke, Bernd Weiß, Anna Hebel, Joachim Piepenburgand Oleksandra Popek, LSE (12 May 2022)
‘Temporary protection’, Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission (2022)
‘Temporary protection for foreigners’, Office for Foreigners, Republic of Poland (2022)
‘War and migration: the recent influx from Ukraine into Poland and possible scenarios for the future’, by Maciej Diszczyk and Pawel Kaczmarczyk, CMR Spotlight, Centre of Migration Research (April 2022)
BooksJacoby, T. (2022). ‘Displaced: The Ukrainian refugee experience’. Talentos Press.
Kasińska-Metryka, A., & Pałka-Suchojad, K. (Eds.). (2023). ‘The Russia-Ukraine War of 2022: Faces of Modern Conflict’. Taylor & Francis.
Academic worksBajaj, S. S., & Stanford, F. C. (2022). ‘The Ukrainian refugee crisis and the pathology of racism’. BMJ.
De Coninck, D. (2022). ‘The refugee paradox during wartime in Europe: How Ukrainian and Afghan refugees are (not) alike’. International Migration Review,
Duszczyk, M., & Kaczmarczyk, P. (2022). ‘Poland and War refugees from Ukraine–Beyond pure Aid’. Institut-Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung an der Universität München.
Grabowska, I. (2023). ‘Societal dangers of migrant crisis narratives with a special focus on Belarussian and Ukrainian borders with Poland’. Frontiers.
Kanas, A., & Kosyakova, Y. (2023). ‘Greater local supply of language courses improves refugees’ labor market integration’. European Societies.
Kosyakova, Y., Kristen, C., & Spörlein, C. (2022). ‘The dynamics of recent refugees’ language acquisition: how do their pathways compare to those of other new immigrants?’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Ociepa-Kicińska, E., & Gorzałczyńska-Koczkodaj, M. (2022). ‘Forms of aid provided to refugees of the 2022 Russia–Ukraine War: The case of Poland’. International journal of environmental research and public health.
Panchenko, T. (2022). ‘Prospects for Integration of Ukrainian Refugees into the German labor market: Results of the ifoOnline Survey’, Institut-Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung an der Universität München.
Toruńczyk-Ruiz, S. (2014). ‘Neighbourhood ties and migrant networks: The case of circular Ukrainian migrants in Warsaw, Poland’. Central and Eastern European Migration Review.
TranscriptMaggie Perzyna
Welcome to Borders & Belonging, a podcast that explores issues in global migration, and aims to debunk myths about migration based on current research. This series is produced by CERC Migration and openDemocracy. I'm Maggie Perzyna, a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University.
It's been just over a year since Russia's most recent invasion of Ukraine. The war waged by Vladimir Putin has killed 1000s of innocent people and displaced millions more. Since February 2022, over 19 million Ukrainians have fled their country. While it is estimated that just over half have returned in the ensuing months, the rest remain spread across the world, particularly in Europe. As of March 2023, the UNHCR estimates over 8 million Ukrainians are living in other parts of Europe. The main narrative around these displaced Ukrainians suggest that they're temporary refugees who will have returned home when the war ends.
Today, we're going to delve into where these refugees settled, the unique challenges facing the countries providing refuge. And if the idea of 'temporary refugees' is a valid one. But first, we'll hear from a couple in Poland who helped resettled 1000s of Ukrainian refugees as soon as the conflict began in 2022. Aleksandra Miszułowicz will never forget the teen boy she met last June while volunteering at a welcome center for Ukrainian refugees in her hometown of Raszyn, located just outside of Warsaw.
Aleksandra Miszułowicz
We make some packages for children and there was a boy, a teenager, and he didn't want to take this present. And his face was you know, with no emotions. He was like a sheet of paper. His grandmother told you know, he just came from Mariupol. And he was really frozen. And we are near the airport here in Raszyn. And anytime the plane was starting children, little children four, three years old, were crying or hiding. And their families told, "you know you're safe here, you're safe here".
Maggie Perzyna
This boy was one of the thousands of Ukrainian refugees that Alexandra and her husband met since February 2022, when they banded together with their neighbors to support people fleeing the war. It was a cause they were committed to from the moment Russia announced the invasion.
Aleksandra Miszułowicz
We were looking at it very carefully because we are really near of this here in Poland. And the day before our president were in Ukraine and we all have hoped that Russian won't do it, but they did it. And it was the moment when we starting to think what we should do in this situation. And the next day and we started to prepare to help. Because we knew that many, many people will come here, and it was some thought that in 1939 nobody helped us and now we may fix something, and we will do it different in this situation.
Maggie Perzyna
Aleksandra curates art exhibitions for a living. Her husband Michał is a banker. Neither had prior experience resettling newcomers, but that didn't stop them. They dipped into their savings account, booked all their vacation days and jumped into 12-hour shifts preparing for their new neighbours. For the first few months, they operated at a sports center in town alongside 15 other volunteers in their community. Michał says contributions came in from individuals, local foundations, and even some generous donors in Hawaii.
Michał Miszułowicz
We put together, I don't know maybe 20, 20-something beds, sheets and blankets to be prepared for people coming. People were coming asking what needs to be brought? So, food, so clothes. There was a huge movement. People were volunteering to meet the refugees on the main train stations. And also, there were or lists to host those people in in...