Ukrainians continue to immigrate - Kiev

MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - Ukrainian citizens crossed the state border 30.11 million times, while 443,000 Ukrainians, who account for 2% of the total number of those who left the country last year but did not return to their homeland, Ukrainian media quoted the Opendatabot service as saying in a statement.

This is 3.3 times more than in 2023, when the difference between those who left the country and those who returned, reached 134,000 people, and in 2024, when June saw the largest number of people who remained abroad, precisely, 194,000.

In total, about three million citizens have not returned over the three years of the crisis, the service said with reference to the Ukrainian State Border Service's official data. This is almost as much as in the 11 years preceding the crisis, namely, from 2011 to 2021, when there were 3.3 million such people.

The service said that 4.2 million Ukrainians had temporary protection status in the European Union as of August 31, 2024, according to official EU statistics, 60% of the total number of Ukrainian refugees were granted protection in Germany (1.1 million), Poland (975,000) and the Czech Republic (376,000).

The Ukrainian State Border Service's data included only information about citizens who traveled across official border checkpoints. There is no reliable data on Ukrainians who left illegally.

Meanwhile, as noted by the media, according to the updated data provided by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees data, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe as of December 16, 2024 was estimated at 6.254 million, and globally at 6.814 million, which is 28,000 more than as of November 18, 2024.

In Ukraine itself, according to the latest UN data as of last August, there were 3.669 million internally displaced persons, 121,000 more than as of last April.