Foreigners who made Ukraine home stay put, despite war
Say going back to their nations is not an option
KYIV — It was just three months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, but Marwa Yehea wanted to return to her home in Kyiv.
Yehea, 31, who is originally from Syria, had fled the Ukrainian capital with her two daughters that February when the war began. In those early days of uncertainty, she was pregnant with her third child, and they spent weeks in Germany.
But she was determined to be back home by the time her son was born. By May 2022, they had returned to Kyiv in time for his birth.
“The war hasn’t ended, and the psychological toll that takes is tiring,” Yehea said during an interview in Kyiv this summer. “But you get used to it. And us especially, as Syrians who emerged from war — well, here we’re secure.”
In the decades before the Russian invasion, Kyiv had become an increasingly cosmopolitan city, a destination for international students and professionals looking to make their lives in Europe. Before the war, some 293,600 foreign nationals were residing permanently in Ukraine, according to government figures from 2020.
Some have made the unlikely decision to continue living here, even as war grips the country and millions have fled. In some instances, returning to their country of origin is impossible, and they have stayed in Ukraine rather than becoming refugees for a second time. Others are simply unwilling to walk away from the lives they have built.
“We were happy here — our lives here were good, praise God,” said Yehea, who had been living in Ukraine since 2012. “We’ve lived comfortable lives here.”
International college students have also returned, weighing the value of an affordable education against the risks of war.
Wang Zheng, 23, who is originally from China, had been studying in Ukraine since 2017 and was just starting to work toward his master’s degree when the war began. He went back to China and continued his studies online but returned to Kyiv last spring. His education “is the most important thing,” he said, adding, “I can’t give up.”
Kyiv is where he first met his girlfriend, Wang Danyang, 26, a trained opera singer who is also from China. She returned to Kyiv in July and they moved in together. They want to build their life here, Wang said.
“I feel like this is my second motherland,” he said.
Some 76,500 foreign students were enrolled in Ukrainian universities in 2020, with the largest percentage coming from India.
Ali Saleh, 25, a citizen of Chad who grew up in Saudi Arabia after his family fled civil war, was studying biomedical engineering at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute when Russian forces moved in.
For now, Saleh is focused on studying and working. In his spare time, he loves to cook, but it can be a solitary life — many of his friends decided against returning.
“I came back, and the country wasn’t at its best,” Saleh said, describing the rolling power cuts last winter and the threat of airstrikes. But he said he hoped that one day he will be able to tell his children and grandchildren about it all.
Even some whose life here has not been ideal still say Ukraine is their home.
Abdullah Hossein al-Rabii, 40, who owns a popular restaurant in Kyiv near the Islamic Center, moved there in 2013 after fleeing Syria’s civil war.
“I’m not stuck in Ukraine,” he said. “I don’t want to leave.”
But al-Rabii lives in limbo, as do thousands of other Syrians who came here. They were never given full refugee status by Ukraine, but instead have been afforded “complementary protection,” which is temporary and provides no path to residency.
Al-Rabii’s Syrian passport has expired, and he hasn’t seen his family in Syria — or left Ukraine — in a decade.
Many Syrians in Ukraine fled elsewhere in Europe when the war began, but al-Rabii, who is married to a Ukrainian woman, is committed to staying.
“The worst thing is that you were a refugee before, then you fled, and then you could become a refugee again,” he said. “This would hurt the most.”