Millions of Ukrainians who fled their homes during war return, despite bombings and blackouts

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Vasily Stebnovsky broke out into a wide smile and tears welled up in his eyes as his six-year-old daughter, Teresa, leaped off a bus and into his arms. His wife, Kateryna, followed behind, wiping away tears and clutching the couple’s second child, Sofia, whom Mr. Stebnovsky was meeting for the first time.

“I can’t believe it,” he said hugging all three tightly.

Ms. Stebnovska, 28, had left Ukraine for Poland shortly after Russia launched its invasion in February. She was pregnant at the time and didn’t feel safe in the family’s home in Kyiv. But, after eight months of separation, she decided to return home this week, casting aside worries about renewed Russian bombing that has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing blackouts weeks ahead of the onset of freezing temperatures.

“I feel I need to be here, that’s all,” she said. She acknowledged that her decision probably seemed irrational. “It feels right. Even though I know all of this stuff is happening.”

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Many other Ukrainians have been doing the same. The bus carrying Ms. Stebnovska from Warsaw to Lviv was packed. On the other side of town, dozens of people got off a morning train from Przemysl, a Polish border city.

A report released last month by the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency that tracks the movement of refugees, found that just over six million Ukrainians who fled their homes because of the fighting had gone back. That was nearly three times higher than the estimate in a similar IOM study in May.

Most of the returnees had fled elsewhere in Ukraine, but 22 per cent, or around 1.2 million, had come back from other countries.

The influx isn’t confined to Lviv and the western part of the country, where fighting has been less intense. Around 1.5 million people have returned to homes in Kyiv, another 414,000 have gone back to Odesa and 559,000 have headed to Kharkiv.

And 85 per cent of those returning home have said they plan to stay there, according to the IOM.

There are still 6.2 million internally displaced people in Ukraine, and around 7.6 million Ukrainians have registered as refugees abroad. The IOM found that the average time away from home for returnees was 76 days.

Helena Zhuravska spent three months in Norway. But this week she felt it was time to go home to Chuhuiv, a city near Kharkiv that has been retaken by Ukrainian forces.

She’s not sure what to expect. She left her husband and son behind, and they’ve told her that their house has been badly damaged by shelling. But she’s determined to start rebuilding and have it ready for winter. “I’m a patriot,” she said shortly after getting off the bus from Warsaw. “This is my life.”

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There are those who worry that some people are taking dangerous chances in their rush to get home.

The Russians’ recent targeting of critical infrastructure has damaged not just the electrical grid, but also water and heating facilities. Officials have said that, since Oct. 10, 30 per cent of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed and nearly half of the country’s thermal generation capacity has been hit. Rolling blackouts are now common in much of the country, and Ukrainians are questioning how warm their homes will be this winter.

Aman Shabhay, 21, has been volunteering in the Lviv train station for months, helping displaced people find shelter and food. He has begun to see more people with children heading back to eastern and southern Ukraine, where shelling is constant. “It’s a real problem,” he said. “It’s not normal to return to a place that is dangerous.”

He knows all too well the perils of war. Mr. Shabhay’s father died in May while fighting alongside the Ukrainian army in Kharkiv. Mr. Shabhay moved to Lviv, while his mother and sister fled to Germany.

For some, the pain of living outside the country is too much.

Oksana Osman went to stay with her brother-in-law in Miami, but she knew she would never be comfortable in the United States. She can’t speak English, she couldn’t find work and she found much of south Florida overwhelming.

She came back to Ukraine on the bus from Warsaw this week with her 22-year-old daughter Jasmine. They planned to catch a train back home to Kharkiv, even though Ms. Osman doesn’t have a job waiting for her there and the family is ill-prepared for winter. The clothing factory where she worked has closed because of the war. Her husband works part-time as a taxi driver.

Despite the challenges, Ms. Osman said she had no regrets about coming home.

“We should be stronger than fear,” she said.

For some people, the stress of following the news in Ukraine from afar and feeling helpless is more mentally taxing than facing up to the problems at home.

“I had a chance to stay abroad, but I didn’t want to,” said Karina Baidoha, a 22-year-old university student. Her entire family, including five brothers and sisters, all went to Greece in March. She joined them for a month, but found life there too difficult and came back to Lviv.

“It was more stressful to be abroad and worrying all the time,” she said. In Lviv, she finds it easier to stay focused on problems and overcome challenges. “We have to think about how to survive,” she said. “And I feel good.”