Almost 70% of respondents are staying in Ukraine and do not plan to leave

On February 24, 2022, a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Today, the aggressor country continues its war. A new poll of AIN.UA depicted how many visitors to our news website went abroad. Furthermore, they told us what country they have chosen to relocate to and if they plan to return to Ukraine after our victory.

Study: There were polled 803 visitors to AIN.UA. They answered closed-ended questions online and showed their positions in the open-ended ones. Following are the results of the survey.

• According to the results, 69.7% of the respondents stay in Ukraine and don’t plan to leave.
• Only 22.3% of them left Ukraine after the start of the full-fledged war. However, only 8% of the respondents planned to relocate.

• For 61.5%, the decision to move is directly connected with military activity. At the same time, 30% of participants wanted to leave earlier, and the war only supported their decisions.
• 8.5% of those who left were relocated with the help of their employers. It’s worth mentioning that some Ukrainian companies ensured the relocation of their employees with families to European countries.

• During the martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine, there are restrictions for men from 18 to 60 years old to leave the country. According to our poll, 58% of the participants would stay in Ukraine if they could. Only 42% of male respondents want to leave.

• Among the most popular countries for relocation are Poland (18.1%), Germany (11.9%), Spain (11.6%), and others (39.9%).
• The least popular countries are Moldova, Slovakia, Estonia, Romania, and Bulgaria.

• 59.8% of respondents said they would return to Ukraine after the war.
• 26.6% could not give an exact answer.
• 13.6% decided to stay abroad forever.

Some of them shared their stories with us:

“I left during the first hours after the war started, together with my family. At that moment, men might leave the country. I am going to go back to help rebuild our country.”

“We planned our journey because of my employment at a foreign company. But the war happened a few days before we completed all the paperwork needed to leave, so we missed our chance to go through before the borders were closed. So now we must wait. But the worst thing is that I can lose my job because there is no remote work option. I think it is a kind of discrimination to forbid only men to leave the country. I am the only person in our family who generates income, not de jure but de facto. After the end of this war, I want to leave forever because I always wanted to move to a place where citizens and community values are at a higher level than here.”

“I believe that it is necessary to work out some conditions for men to leave and support the country economically. It could be mandatory monthly payments. But giving a choice to men on how they can defend their country is the right thing to do.”

“I have not left although I wanted it. My employer offered me to go to Poland, but we couldn’t leave after the border was closed for men. So we moved from Kharkiv to Chernivtsi. After the end of the war, I don’t want to leave if I will survive. However, if there will be a good job opportunity, I could try.”

I have a document that gives me the right to leave the country right now. Besides, I have a place to go. But I’m staying here because it is my country.

“I am an IT entrepreneur, a co-founder of a startup. At the beginning of the war, we left Kyiv for Lviv, stopped working on the startup, and focused on developing a shelter for refugees. But right after the end of the war and the opening of the borders, we will migrate to the United States or Canada because we realize that it will be very difficult or even impossible to attract investments to Ukraine in the next year. And we only have one chance before we run out of money. By the way, I am from Donetsk, and in 2014, I was forced to migrate to Kyiv.”