courtesy Yana Felos<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile, she has been building a life in London \u2013 securing her own apartment and a job teaching English at a lifelong learning center. Post-divorce, she has no intention of returning to Ukraine and wants to focus instead on opportunities to give her 6-year-old daughter Alisa a brighter future. <\/p>\n
As communities become more fragmented, and the economy struggles, the Ukrainian government wants to encourage those who fled as refugees, most of them women and children, to return. It\u2019s setting up a Ministry of National Unity tasked with creating programs and incentives to encourage people overseas to come home. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t pressure, push people to come back. I can give very loud message to Ukrainians who are abroad to come and help, to work in defense industry, to help our soldiers, to pay taxes, to support Ukraine,\u201d President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an October press conference. <\/p>\n
It comes as Ukraine grapples with boosting national morale, among both civilians and troops on the frontlines, many who have been unable to rotate out to have time off. <\/p>\n
Last month, Zelensky spoke about the need to end the conflict in 2025, saying, \u201cfrom our side, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means.\u201d Incoming Trump administration officials in the United States have also been weighing proposals to stop the war. <\/p>\n
As it drags on, though, Ukraine appears increasingly concerned about the economic consequences of a hollowed-out population, and the future ramifications of a brain-drain. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery month of the \u2018hot\u2019 phase of the war leads to more people adapting abroad and more destruction here, so fewer people will return,\u201d said Ella Libanova, an economics professor and director of the Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
And in the nearer term, it\u2019s possible that more Ukrainians could leave. <\/p>\n
The overall security situation remains difficult, with Ukraine hit by a recent surge in Russian ballistic missile strikes, and drone attacks increasing each month. Russia launched 2,434 drones in November alone. <\/p>\n
On one of her return visits to see her former husband in Ukraine, Felos recalls telling her daughter that the sounds of nearby explosions were fireworks. <\/p>\n
Russia also continues to bombard Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure as winter arrives and residential areas are regularly hit. The Kyiv School of Economics estimates that as of January 2024, almost 250,000 buildings had been damaged and destroyed, including 222,600 private houses and 27,000 apartment buildings. In a significant number of cities, more than half the housing stock has been damaged. <\/p>\n
Even so, many Ukrainians are aching to go back. <\/p>\n
For some, the life they once built in Ukraine feels too substantial to simply abandon. People saved their whole lives to buy homes, build businesses and get professional qualifications there. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been called the most professional refugee wave in recent (history),\u201d Voronovych said, adding that most are now underemployed, working \u201clow-paid jobs\u201d that don\u2019t match their capabilities. <\/p>\n
For some Ukrainians, the decision to return has less to do with economics or government incentives, and everything to do with the practicalities of everyday life \u2013 mothers are waiting for schools to reopen, or for schools operating underground to protect students from Russian attacks to return to normal. <\/p>\n
Victoria Rybka, 40, from the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, spent the first few weeks of the war sheltering in a basement with her two young children, before fleeing with them to Europe. But in Germany, one of her daughters struggled to communicate in school, and her other daughter developed a skin condition, believed to be stress-related. <\/p>\n
Just two months later, Rybka decided to return, feeling a pull to return to her job in the police force and to her family. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t leave my husband. We\u2019ve been through a lot together,\u201d Rybka said. <\/p>\n
Kharkiv was eerily empty at the time, with mostly men and elderly people who stayed behind, she said. Only one other mother in their block of flats came back in the early days of war, but more have since trickled home as schools reopened underground. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone makes their own choice,\u201d she acknowledged. \u201cI made my choice \u2013 this is my home.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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