Ukrainian government wants all refugees back home soon, but they don't

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Kyiv was hoping to return all Ukrainian refugees from Germany as soon as possible.

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Mirek Pruchnicki, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Ukrainian refugees in Poland

"We hope that all Ukrainian refugees who fled to Germany will soon return to their homeland," Ukrainian Prime Minister Shmyhal said.

Kyiv discussed technical details related to the issue with the German government and agreed on cooperation for the speedy return of Ukrainian refugees.

Germany remains the main temporary place of residence for Ukrainian refugees in Europe. More than 1.2 million Ukrainians live in Germany today. Despite such a large number of refugees, Germany continues accepting displaced people. As of the end of March 2024, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Germany has grown to 1.65 million people.

Interestingly, though, the majority of Ukrainian refugees want to stay in Germany and reject returning to Ukraine, the head of the refugee department of the Berlin state government, Mark Siebert said, Tagesspiegel reports.

"Six months ago, most of them said that they wanted to return to Ukraine. Now the majority (65 percent) say: "We will stay here. We will settle in," Siebert said.

Earlier, the head of the German Council for a Constitution and Sovereignty, Ralf Niemeyer, reported that the attitude of the German population towards Ukrainian refugees worsened since the start of the conflict.