Foreigners who ensured that Ukraine stayed at home, despite war

It was only three months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, but Marwa Yehea wanted to return to her home in Kiev.

Ms Yehea, 31, who is originally from Syria, had fled the Ukrainian capital with her two daughters in February, when the war began. In those early days of uncertainty, she was pregnant with her third child and they spent weeks in Germany.

But she was determined to be back home by the time her son was born. By May 2022, they returned to Kiev in time for his birth.

“The war is not over yet and the psychological toll it is taking is exhausting,” Ms. Yehea said during an interview in Kiev this summer. “But you get used to it. And especially we, as Syrians who have come out of the war, we are safe here.”

In the decades before the Russian invasion, Kiev had become an increasingly cosmopolitan city, a destination for international students and professionals looking to build their lives in Europe. According to government figures from 2020, around 293,600 foreigners lived permanently in Ukraine before the war.

Some have made the unlikely decision to continue living here, even as war grips the country and millions of people have fled. In some cases, returning to their country of origin is impossible and they would rather stay in Ukraine than become refugees for the second time. Others are simply unwilling to walk away from the lives they have built in the country.

“We were happy here – our life here was good, praise God,” said Ms Yehea, who had lived in Ukraine since 2012. “We have lived a comfortable life here.”

International students have also returned, weighing the value of affordable education against the risks of war.

23-year-old Wang Zheng, originally from China, has been studying in Ukraine since 2017 and had just started working on his master’s degree when the war broke out. He returned to China and continued his studies online, but returned to Kiev last spring. His education “is the most important thing,” he said, adding: “I can’t give up.”

In Kiev he first met his girlfriend Wang Danyang, 26, a trained opera singer who is also from China. She returned to Kiev in July and they started living together. They want to build their lives here, Mr. Wang said.

“I feel like this is my second motherland,” he said.

In 2020, some 76,500 foreign students were enrolled in Ukrainian universities, with the largest percentage coming from India.

Two students from that country, Jaanvi, 20, who officially goes by a single name, and her roommate, Mary Fiona, 22, were studying medicine in Kiev when the war broke out. Jaanvi had arrived in December 2021, just months before the Russian invasion began, and fled the fighting for four days.

She and other Indian students were told that Ukrainians were given priority boarding trains leaving the city, and they waited for hours. Eventually she reached the Polish border, but foreign students again faced delays, a problem that many students from Asia and Africa faced told at the time.

Ms Fiona, who had lived in Ukraine for four years, said she had experienced some discrimination in Ukraine before the war, which she described as “painful”, but that overall she had a positive experience living here.

“I love this country, that’s why I came back,” Ms Fiona said.

In January 2023, both women returned to Ukraine, undeterred by the airstrikes.

“If you are going to die, you can die at home,” Jaanvi said. “It all depends on fate. There are bunkers and Ukrainian people also live here.”

Ali Saleh, 25, a Chadian citizen who grew up in Saudi Arabia after his family fled the civil war, was studying biomedical engineering at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute when Russian troops entered. He fled to Paris for a few months, but returned to Kiev early in the morning. 2023.

For now, Mr Saleh is concentrating on studying and working. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, but it can be a lonely life; many of his friends decided not to return.

“I came back and the country was not at its best,” Mr. Saleh said, describing last winter’s persistent power outages and the threat of airstrikes. But he said he hoped one day he would be able to tell all of this to his children and grandchildren.

Zyad Hakim, 24, had been studying mechanical engineering at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute for five years when war broke out and was unwilling to simply walk away from the work he had completed.

Mr Hakim, who is originally from Morocco, returned there at the start of the war but returned to Kiev in January 2023 to complete his final semester. This summer he completed his studies and then moved back to Morocco.

“I had to come here to finish it,” he said in Kiev, just days before he left. “Otherwise all my work would go into the gutter – into the abyss.”

Other immigrants say they are determined to stay for the long term, even if the war disrupts their lives.

Abdaljalil Rejee, a Palestinian doctor, has lived in Ukraine for twenty years. He left for Britain with his wife and two children when the war began, but returned to Kiev in the summer of 2022, eager to return to work and for his children to resume their routines. In Kiev, despite the war, their lives have resumed normal rhythm. They picnic in the park on weekends, spend time with friends at the Kiev Islamic Center, and their children go back to school

“We have choices, but we prefer to stay in Ukraine,” says Dr. Rejee, 39. “We know our future is here, and we will remain so.”

Dr.’s extended family Rejee lives in the West Bank, and with war in Gaza, he worries about their safety – just as they worry about his. “It is very difficult to see children, women and people in general being murdered every day,” he said.

Even some whose lives here have not been ideal still say Ukraine is their home.

Abdullah Hossein al-Rabii, 40, owner of a popular restaurant in Kiev near the Islamic Center, moved there in 2013 after fleeing the Syrian civil war. Serving falafel, hummus, shawarma and other Middle Eastern dishes, he can usually be found at the front grill, greeting his mostly Ukrainian customers with a warm smile as the smoke swirls around them.

“I am not stuck in Ukraine,” he said. “I don’t want to leave.”

But Mr al-Rabii lives in limbo, like thousands of other Syrians who came here. Ukraine never gave them full refugee status, but it has been granted “Additional protection”, which is temporary and does not provide a path to permanent residence.

Mr Rabii’s Syrian passport has expired and he has not seen his family in Syria – or left Ukraine – for a decade.

Many Syrians in Ukraine fled elsewhere in Europe when the war began, seeking safety and a more stable future. But Mr al-Rabii, who is married to a Ukrainian woman, is keen to stay.

“The worst thing is that you were a refugee first, then you fled and then you could become a refugee again,” he said. “This would hurt the most.”

Daria Mitiuk And Oleksandr Chubko contributed reporting from Kiev.