Svitlana (rear, second left) and her sister Nadiia (rear, second right) with their six children in their new home near Sumy, Ukraine.© UNHCR/Oleksii Barkov
Nearly 11 million Ukrainians have been forced from their homes since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, but with the support of UNHCR, people are proving their resilience.
The deadly and destructive full-scale war in Ukraine continues to affect every aspect of life, shattering homes and communities and forcing people into a state of constant anxiety. But even when so much is being lost, Ukrainians are finding ways to survive and rebuild.
Sisters Nadiia Gryshyna and Svitlana Kartashova were left homeless and penniless after being forced to flee as attacks intensified near their village of Velyka Rybytsia on the Psel River in northeastern Ukraine, just 5 kilometres from the Russian border.
Living in neighbouring houses on the same road, the sisters, who are both single mothers with six children between them, farmed nearby land. They had coped with years of hostilities until last summer, when the fighting came too close, and the danger became too much.
When a shell hit Nadiia’s house – blowing out the windows and damaging the doors and roof – they bravely stayed and made repairs, with the help of Proliska, a local partner organization of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Workers from UNHCR’s NGO partner Proliska make emergency repairs to a damaged home in Zaporizhzhia, another frontline region in Ukraine.© UNHCR/Viktoriia Tiutiunnyk
Two weeks later, a massive explosion shook their homes, said Svitlana, 36. “Everything started at 4 a.m., just as I was getting ready to go out to work. I told Nadiia that we needed to evacuate the children because it would not end well.”
“Our village is too close to the front line: every day, we were bombed,” added 33-year-old Nadiia. “It was too much to bear. This time, we understood that we had to save the children. Staying was no longer an option.”
UNHCR partner Proliska evacuated Nadiia, Svitlana and their six children – aged between 8 and 15 years – to the city of Sumy by minibus. They took with them only their identity documents and what few possessions they could carry. “The evacuation was very hard for us,” said Nadiia. “We miss our home so much. We miss the feeling of being home and how we would gather in the garden for coffee and gossip.”
Relentless suffering
Three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – and 11 years since the start of the war in the east and the occupation of Crimea – conflict, destruction and displacement continue to be a daily reality. Everybody is affected, living with the fear of the next attack, and uncertainty about the future.
See also: Explainer: War in Ukraine – the human cost and humanitarian response
An estimated 10.6 million Ukrainians have been forced from their homes over the last three years – either, like Nadiia and Svitlana, to other parts of the country or as refugees to countries in Europe and beyond. Roughly a third of the population still living in Ukraine – 12.7 million people – need humanitarian assistance. As the war goes on, the suffering is relentless.
During 2024, Russia’s ground offensive and aerial attacks against several border areas – including Sumy – led to increased displacement, with around 200,000 people fleeing their homes in frontline regions during the second half of last year, according to local authorities.
‘A chance to start over’
After evacuating them to Sumy, UNHCR provided Nadiia and Svitlana with cash to acquire essentials such as food and medicine, and helped secure space for them in a collective site, the name given to public buildings across Ukraine repurposed to house displaced people, as well as donating blankets, mattresses and hygiene kits. “The most important thing is that we are together and safe,” said Svitlana.
Nadiia and her children at the collective site in Sumy where they lived after being evacuated in August 2024.© UNHCR/Oleksii Barkov
The United Nations and partners are appealing for $3.32 billion to fund the humanitarian and refugee response in support of 8.2 million of the people most severely affected by the war, both within Ukraine and outside its borders.
UNHCR requires $550 million for its work inside Ukraine, including assisting evacuees and the newly displaced to find accommodation, and providing emergency and psychosocial support to families directly affected by the war.
“This is not the time to forget the millions of Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes and, for too many of them, their country,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, after a recent visit to the frontline Sumy region during which he met Nadiia and Svitlana as well as other forcibly displaced people.
Even during conflict, and especially after suffering displacement, living must be about more than simply survival. Last month, Nadiia and Svitlana took a crucial step towards a fresh start when they and their children moved into a Ukrainian-made prefabricated house in a settlement established by UNHCR and local authorities in a village south of Sumy city.
“We really love our new home,” said Svitlana who welcomed having her own family bathroom again as well as heating, reliable power and furniture.
With four other families as neighbours and five more soon to arrive, a settled, resilient community is forming. “We can’t return [to our village] because our homes are destroyed, but now we have a place where we can rebuild our lives,” said Svitlana.
Nadiia added, “As a family, we have a chance to start over, after going through so much.”
