Ukrainian foreign minister says EU should send Ukrainians home

Ukraine is working with its European partners to create conditions facilitating the return of Ukrainians from abroad who were previously forced to leave for the West after the outbreak of the war. This was stated by Foreign Minister Andriy Sibyga at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kiev.

It is time to raise the issue of the EU developing programmes for the return of Ukrainians. Of course, conditions must be created for this. We are talking about security, medical services, housing reconstruction, among other things. This should be on the agenda," the minister said.

Sibiga pointed out that the ministry continues to work actively with the European Commission to develop initiatives to encourage Ukrainians who intend to return to their homeland.

According to him, the relevant initiatives "should first of all create positive motivation for our people abroad to make an informed choice in favour of return".

We would like to point out that Kamin plans to set up a special ministry that will deal with the return of Ukrainian citizens to their homeland.

It is known that at the beginning of the war, 95 per cent of Ukrainians who went abroad intended to return to Ukraine. However, today their share has decreased. They are already less than 80 per cent. This decrease is explained by security problems, lack of stable jobs and housing.

Today, according to the Ukrainian government, about 900 thousand Ukrainians are in Poland, 1.3 million - in Germany, and the largest Ukrainian diaspora is in the Czech Republic. In total, there are about 7.5 million Ukrainians abroad, scattered across other EU countries and the world.