Families from Lisichansk, eastern Ukraine, evacuated by van by volunteers last month. Credit… Tyler Hicks/New York Times
Roughly a third of Ukraine’s population has been forced to flee their homes since Russia invaded in February, including more than 7.1 million people who are internally displaced, according to UN figures, illustrating the scale of a humanitarian crisis that has much remains unseen as the war continues.
The number of internally displaced people dwarfs the 4.8 million Ukrainians who fled to Europe as refugees, according to the UN refugee agency, which described levels of displacement not seen since World War II.
While large parts of the country were subjected to the brutality of the Russian invasion in its first weeks, most of those displaced in Ukraine now come from the east as that region becomes the center of the conflict.
Boarding trains and buses, civilians poured out of cities in eastern Ukraine, fleeing the relative safety of the west and the northern capital, Kyiv. Some have left in humanitarian convoys, navigating treacherous roads under threat of gunfire or shelling. Others have gone on foot, literally running for their lives.
And as Russian forces now train their artillery in Donetsk province in the east, aiming to take over the entire industrial region of Donbass, more people are being forced from their homes daily.
“The country was not ready for such a scale of displacement in many areas,” Vitaly Muzychenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of social policy, said at a news conference this week where he announced new plans to register displaced people for state benefits.
Counting those in need is a challenge: only three million people are officially registered as internally displaced, although the true number is believed to be more than twice that. The lack of international humanitarian support has further strained local resources.
This mass exodus reshaped communities across the country, even those that had been spared the physical devastation of war. Shelters have sprung up in public buildings, university dormitories have been remodeled and some modular homes have been created to accommodate the displaced.
The majority of internally displaced people, like refugees, are women and children, and many face shortages of food, water and basic necessities, according to UN experts.
Oksana Zelinska, 40, who was the director of a kindergarten in the southern city of Kherson, which is now occupied by Russian forces, fled in April with her two children, a colleague and the woman’s children to the western city of Uzhhorod near the Slovak border. Her husband has stayed in Kherson and she would like to return, but said she is staying in the west for her children.
“When we came here I had to do something, it was hard and I didn’t want to sit and be depressed,” she said. “I wanted to be helpful.”
She began volunteering at the community kitchen she had used when she first arrived, peeling potatoes and preparing food for the dozens who came daily for a hot meal.
Helping displaced people return to their homes or find new ones looms as one of Ukraine’s biggest challenges, regardless of the outcome of the war. Some of their hometowns may not return to Ukrainian control. Others that are captured can be almost completely destroyed, with homes, water pipes and other vital infrastructure pulverized by the Russian army’s scorched-earth tactics.
Ukraine’s government has estimated its recovery needs at $750 billion. This week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to allies for support, describing the effort as a “joint task of the entire democratic world.” On Tuesday, the United States joined more than 40 governments and multilateral organizations in signing a framework agreement at a conference in Switzerland to help mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars for Ukraine’s recovery, including long-term recovery.
It was far from clear whether these promises would materialize into funds and how soon. But the host of the meeting, President Ignazio Cassis of Switzerland, said the commitments “should give the people of Ukraine hope and certainty that they are not alone.”
—Megan Spezia and Nick Cumming-Bruce
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