“I’m done exploring the world. I don’t mind traveling, but I want to live in Ukraine,” said Oksana, a 25-year-old from southern Ukraine who has lived in Germany since 2022.
She has learned the language, found work, and secured stable housing, yet Germany still doesn’t feel like home. She misses the familiarity of Ukraine and the sense that, as a citizen, she can influence the society around her.
But she says she is not ready to return. Russia’s war is still raging, her home remains occupied, and she wants to pursue a master’s degree at a top university, establish herself professionally, and build a fulfilling life in a free and democratic country.
Her dilemma is part of a much larger problem. Ukraine urgently needs young people to sustain its recovery, economy, and already fragile demographic future, yet it is competing for them as they gain education, legal status, and professional experience in more prosperous and peaceful countries.
Ukraine’s population was already shrinking when Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion. Years of low birth rates, an aging population, and emigration had reduced its population to an estimated 42 million by early 2022. By July 2024, Kyiv said it had fallen to 35.8 million.
The loss of young, educated people is especially damaging. Many had already been seeking better education and careers abroad, but the war, and the legal and learning opportunities offered in response, made those ambitions more attractive and easier to pursue.
Amina, a young Crimean Tatar now working in London, first left Ukraine on an academic exchange after Russia occupied Bucha, where her family was living. She studied in Switzerland and then in Sweden, extending her stay because she found better professors, more imaginative teaching, and a strong international environment. She then completed her master’s at the London School of Economics.
Her story shows how temporary academic mobility can be the beginning of a life abroad. Exposure to better-resourced institutions changes students’ expectations of education and employment and, for many, returning home would feel like sacrificing their professional development.
Amina’s peer Arina, from Kyiv, presents the countercase. She left Ukraine for Romania at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, continued studying online at her Ukrainian university, and returned after several months.
She now lives in Ukraine and does not want to leave permanently, though she hopes to complete a master’s degree abroad because she sees foreign education as more competitive.
After only a short period outside Ukraine, she saw return as the obvious course. Those who complete degrees, enter the labor market, learn the language, and form relationships have a clearer alternative to going back.
Vasyl, a young man from Luhansk, moved to Warsaw for his bachelor’s studies in 2021 and had expected to return, but the full-scale invasion led him to the University of Chicago. He is now preparing for a doctorate in Ukrainian literature in California.
When asked if he could imagine living in Ukraine again, his answer was “likely no,” at least not in the foreseeable future.
After several years in the US, he said he stopped building his life around the war’s end and his eventual return. “It’s more productive to accept things as they are and go from there,” he explained. “It also helps to feel at home here.”
Vasyl’s academic work remains devoted to Ukrainian literature and culture, and he continues to closely follow his country’s politics. He could become a valuable member of the diaspora even if he doesn’t permanently return.
But such influence abroad cannot compensate for the loss of young workers, taxpayers, specialists, and future families.
Under its mid-range scenario, the Kyiv-based Centre for Economic Strategy estimates 68% of refugees aged 18–34 will remain abroad after the war. Emotional attachment may endure, but Ukraine cannot assume it will outweigh the careers, relationships, and stability they find elsewhere.
Kyiv has recognized the demographic danger, and its development strategy through 2040 includes housing support, stronger links with Ukrainians abroad, youth employment, and other measures to encourage returns.
Its recently launched Dodomu platform allows users to create personalized return plans and find information about procedures, employment, education, public services, and Ukrainian communities.
These are important steps, but they mostly help people navigate after their decision is made. They do less to persuade an ambitious graduate that returning is professionally and personally viable.
The interviews with young refugees suggest a key priority should be turning patriotic attachment into concrete professional offers.
Create Ukraine provides a useful model. The program recruits Ukrainians educated or employed abroad and places them in government institutions working on reforms, reconstruction, and European integration. Its current cohort includes 24 professionals across eight state institutions.
But a program measured in dozens cannot address a problem measured in hundreds of thousands.
A national system of paid internships, return fellowships, graduate programs, and targeted recruitment across government, municipalities, universities, reconstruction projects, civil society, and strategically important businesses could help turn the tide.
Candidates could be encouraged with defined positions, adequate compensation, and, where necessary, helped with relocation and housing before leaving employment or education abroad.
When Amina explored an opportunity connected to a Ukrainian institution in London, she found the position was unpaid. For someone who wanted to work for Ukraine, this was immediately discouraging.
And back home, foreign education is often seen as a bureaucratic liability rather than an asset. Ukraine could encourage returns by simplifying the recognition of reputable foreign degrees, while joint degrees, teaching visits, research partnerships, and paid placements could help bring professional experience home.
The problem is not that young people travel to study abroad. Amina emphasized that intercultural exchange had developed her professionally and changed how she understood and communicated Ukraine’s position.
Oksana similarly described becoming more emancipated, adaptable, resilient, and conscious of her identity while living in Germany. Ukraine could benefit from those qualities by creating institutions capable of receiving them.
Above all, Ukraine needs to continue being a country to which these young people want to return.
The interviewees repeatedly mentioned the importance of democratic institutions, the rule of law, European integration, and social inclusion. Sabina, a young woman preparing to begin her master’s at Milan’s Bocconi University, said her decision would depend on continued reform, LGBT protections, social inclusion, and confidence that her taxes would not be stolen.
Vasyl said authoritarian backsliding would repel people who might otherwise return.
It was clear these are not secondary factors to be addressed after economic reconstruction has happened. They are vital to reassure young Ukrainians that, if they return, they will be protected by institutions, treated fairly, and allowed to shape the country around them.
Most already know that their country needs them, so another campaign telling them that is unnecessary.
They need a credible path home, clear opportunities, and a country in which they can imagine building the rest of their lives.
Some interviewees’ names have been changed at their request for privacy or security reasons.
Sofia Slonovska is a CEPA Editorial Intern and a graduate of Bard College Berlin, where she studied politics, economics, and social thought. Ukrainian-born, her research interests include European security, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and transatlantic relations.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
