Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused the largest forced population displacement crisis in Europe since the second world war. As of 2026, roughly 4.4 million refugees from Ukraine hold temporary protection status in the EU. Around 4.6 million more are internally displaced.
Hundreds of thousands of families in the country have been separated and many relatives have not seen each other for years. Men subject to conscription cannot leave Ukraine, while older adults and people with mobility issues face difficulties evacuating. Others have simply chosen to stay in their homes.
Travelling around Ukraine is unsafe and trips abroad are expensive and, sometimes, restricted. Even digital communication is not always possible, particularly for families now split across Russia and Ukraine, because the Russian authorities have blocked access to foreign social media platforms.
Moving to Russia has been a reality for many people in Ukraine. Over 1 million Ukrainians fled to Russia between 2014 and 2015, when Russia began orchestrating hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine. A similar amount are thought to have crossed the Russian border since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Between 2016 and 2018, I carried out research on Ukrainians displaced in Russia. I found that some people had opted to move to Russia rather than relocate to other parts of Ukraine because they feared a deepening crisis in their homeland. Many of the people I encountered had friends in Russia or used to work there.
When the full-scale invasion began, fleeing to Russia was often the only option for people living near the frontlines to escape alive as the war made it extremely difficult to travel from areas behind Russian lines to other regions of Ukraine. The US State Department says hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians from the occupied territories, including tens of thousands of children, have also been forcibly transferred to Russia during the war.
magr80 / Shutterstock
Family reunification
Instances of family reunification have been rare, particularly for families now divided between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine’s borders with Russia have been closed since 2022 and the entry of Ukrainian citizens is limited to the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. Even then, entry is only possible after travel through third countries such as Turkey.
Admission is also far from guaranteed. A recent study conducted by Women Building Bridges, an initiative made up of activists from Ukraine and Russia, details the obstacles faced by separated Ukrainian families. Decisions about whether Ukrainian citizens can enter Russia are decided by border control units with no transparency.
Entry is often denied for extended periods, appeals are largely ineffective and the reasons for refusal are not disclosed or available in advance. The risk of entry bans to Russia following refusal have also led many Ukrainian citizens to refrain from travelling. As one woman who moved to Russia while her daughter stayed in Ukraine told the authors of the study:
Now, they impose bans for 20 or even 50 years. If I were to fall seriously ill and my daughter had to persuade border officers at Sheremetyevo to let her in, showing medical documents – God forbid. If she will be denied an entry, then no document will help later.
Ukrainian citizens arriving at Sheremetyevo have also reported facing questioning and body inspections by border guards, as well as having their phones and laptops examined. Some have been detained for days without clear legal grounds or timelines, while others say they have faced threats, psychological pressure and cases of violence.
Meanwhile, it is incredibly difficult for Ukrainians currently living in Russian-occupied territories to access Ukrainian or EU consular services. In-person services such as passport renewals require people to exit occupied areas and travel to government-controlled Ukraine or Ukrainian embassies in third countries. This creates further difficulties in reunifying separated families.
Telsek / Shutterstock
Building peace
Family reunification is not just a humanitarian issue, it is also an important part of successful peacebuilding and reconciliation. According to a 2019 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the psychological anguish when families remain separated can spread “over generations”. This can scar the history and social fabric of entire communities and hinder collective healing, the report says, hindering collective healing.
However, family separation is currently a blind spot in peace instruments. The Language of Peace database of 252 interstate peace instruments, which was developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, reveals that there are only a few that mention families. These include the 1973 Paris peace accords, which aimed to establish an official ceasefire in Vietnam, as well as the 1999 Nairobi agreement between Sudan and Uganda.
Families in Cyprus were separated by an impermeable border after Turkey’s 1974 invasion and, until crossings opened in 2003, they rarely met relatives on the other side. And more than 70 years on from the division of the Korean peninsula, thousands of Koreans have died without an opportunity to see their loved ones.
One can only hope that Ukrainian families will not have to wait as long to be together again.
