In the new year she wants to return home, says Kateryna Nikashkina. In the spring. Or by the end of the school year at the latest. Immediately after the outbreak of war, the Ukrainian fled to near Munich with her two children. A German-Russian family welcomed her warmly. They quickly learned German. Nevertheless, they want to go back to their father and grandparents, to their old life. Back to her country, which Nikashkina believes needs her.
But maybe your country will have to wait. Because the course of the war does not allow a return. Or because of her husband’s job. He works as a first officer on merchant ships. If he can go to sea again, she doesn’t want to be alone with the children in the war zone.
Go or stay? Many Ukrainians ask themselves this question. When the first bombs fell, they hoped they would only have to get to safety for a short time. At a Survey by the Federal Office for Civil Protection among 11,000 Ukrainian refugees 26 percent said they wanted to stay in Germany. About a third want to hold out until the end of the war and then return. 27 percent were still unsure how things would continue for them.
One thing is clear: the longer the war lasts, the more people will put down roots in Germany. The temporary situation could become permanent. Despite all the current problems, Germany should benefit from this in the long term. For Ukraine, however, the brain drain is a catastrophe.
Almost three out of four refugees from Ukraine have a university degree
More than a million Ukrainians have fled to Germany since the beginning of the war. Compared to other refugee movements, it is easy for them to get here. It helps that most of them have private accommodation. In the survey, 74 percent said so. In addition, there is the high level of education of the people who have left Ukraine: according to the survey, 73 percent of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 70 have university degrees. What is bad for Ukraine is good for Germany: 18 percent of working-age refugees have already found a job.
That is much. After all, the majority of those arriving could not speak German. Most adults were women, many came with minor children. More than half of those surveyed were taking or taking German courses. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser also praised the high level of education and the willingness to “get involved and work”. These are “gratifying findings,” said the SPD politician, “also in view of the urgent shortage of workers and skilled workers.”
In the short term, however, many government agencies are groaning under the influx. According to provisional figures, 621,000 Ukrainian nationals are covered by basic jobseekers’ benefits in mid-November, including 414,000 people of working age and 207,000 children. As a result, unemployment figures skyrocketed. Without the flight effect, according to the Federal Employment Agency, in November 2022 it would not have been around 2.43, but 2.25 million. The job centers have thousands of new customers whom they have to help with the recognition of their qualifications, placement in jobs and language courses.
Even if many Ukrainians are able to help themselves, the sheer number of people arriving means that cities and communities are in dire straits. It crunches everywhere where it was tight before. In the schools, for example, where 200,000 students are now learning more and the shortage of teachers is increasing. In the overheated housing markets of the big cities. Refugees who have been staying as guests for months are now desperately looking for an affordable home of their own. That is almost hopeless in cities like Berlin. Especially since the refugee accommodation because of the also increasing numbers of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey or Iraq are already full. In some municipalities, gymnasiums had to be cleared again.
This contains political explosives, as the much-criticized Christmas message from the Bautzen District Administrator Udo Witschas shows. In the video published on Facebook, the district administrator speaks of people “who don’t know our culture”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.”It is not our intention to promote sport, whether school or leisure time, bleeding now for this asylum policy,” he says.
This triggered angry reactions from politicians across the parties: Saxony’s Green Justice Minister Katja Meier, for example, accused Witschas of trampling on values such as democracy, the rule of law and human dignity. The federal CDU also distanced itself from the district administrator. On the matter, however, many local politicians agree: Gyms should not be occupied again if possible.
Get people out of Ukraine? Some helpers are now rethinking
Some aid organizations are already rethinking the overloaded social system. “It might be better for old and sick people in particular if they can stay in Ukraine,” says Janine von Wolfersdorff. The Berliner, who together with the Malteser relief service in the first months of the war brought hundreds of mainly sick children, pregnant women and old people out of Kyiv in buses, is now fighting to rebuild the aid structures there. Together with Mayor Vitali Klitschko wants to have a retirement home repaired and expandedso that it can also accommodate people from contested parts of the country.
The federal government is also doing everything it can to support Ukraine on the ground “so that it can quickly restore the destroyed infrastructure and get through the winter,” says Minister Faeser. Hundreds of transports brought generators, snow clearing vehicles, ambulances and medicines into the country.
In addition, money has been made available for internally displaced persons so that they can provide themselves with the bare essentials, such as clothing and fuel, according to the Ministry for Development Cooperation (BMZ). Housing for at least 7,000 internally displaced persons in Ukraine is also to be created via the International Organization for Migration (IOM). However, aid organizations are progressing too slowly on some of these projects.
Enabling people to stay in the country, even now in winter, and bringing back the young and educated in particular: for Ukraine, these are questions of survival. “The most valuable thing in Ukraine is its people,” said the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, at the start of an aid project in Kyiv.