UKRAINIANS ABROAD: PRESERVATION OF IDENTITY, PROSPECTS OF RETURN AND COUNTERING RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

Kateryna Nastoiashcha, Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Sociological Research at the Institute for National Resilience and Security

Alla Petrenko-Lysak, Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Sectoral Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

SUMMARY

At the end of 2025, 4.35 million people who had left Ukraine held temporary protection status in the European Union; by mid-2026 – 4.41 million (Eurostat). This is the largest wave in the history of the EU temporary protection mechanism and at the same time a unique strategic resource that Ukraine has so far barely used systematically. In July 2026, the Council of the EU extended temporary protection until March 4, 2028 – precisely the period that opens a window for active work on retaining identity and encouraging return.

The empirical basis of this note is a qualitative study by the Institute for National Resilience and Security (INRS): 100 in-depth interviews in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Poland conducted in February–April 2026. Several patterns recur everywhere. For the overwhelming majority of respondents, emigration did not weaken Ukrainian identity but strengthened it. Intentions to return are polarized: young people are oriented toward staying, whereas the middle and older generations declare an intention to return. The critical period is the third to fifth year of residence, when the “point of no return” arrives. Finally, Russian influence operates not as a set of separate actions but as a single networked system of six interconnected channels: from the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) of the Moscow Patriarchate to digital operations and the everyday level.

The most underinvested area remains countering influence at the infrastructure level. The asymmetry between the presence of the ROC sphere (~270–295 structures in the five focus countries) and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU; 15 communities in two of the five focus countries) is systemic in nature, and, according to the study’s findings, none of the host states is addressing it substantively. The note sets out twelve recommendations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Ukraine. The key ones: activating the “diaspora resource” through the Mission of Ukraine to the EU; a dialogue with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the Tomos provision that limits OCU jurisdiction to Ukraine; systematic funding of Saturday schools and Ukrainian-language psychological support; and a single coordination mechanism for diaspora policy.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

The empirical basis is 100 in-depth interviews with Ukrainian refugees in the five countries, conducted by an INRS research team in February–April 2026. Respondents were recruited by snowball sampling; the design is qualitative – it captures the structure of phenomena and the mechanisms of influence but does not yield statistically representative shares, and the most isolated groups are underrepresented in the sample.

The five focus countries were selected for the scale of the Ukrainian presence, documented activity of Russian influence channels and access to respondents; together they cover a spectrum of integration models.

The interview materials were triangulated with open data from European state bodies, think tanks and monitoring organizations; macro indicators are taken from official statistics. A conservative principle was applied to the attribution of Russian influence: every channel is confirmed by at least two independent pieces of evidence and/or documents of state bodies; the quantitative ranges are INRS expert estimates.

I. ASSIMILATION, IDENTITY AND PROSPECTS OF RETURN

1.1. Scale and structure of Ukrainian presence in EU

According to Eurostat, as of December 31, 2025, 4.35 million people who had left Ukraine held temporary protection in the EU, and as of mid-2026 the figure was around 4.41 million. The distribution between countries is sharply asymmetric: from 1,251 thousand people in Germany and 969 thousand in Poland to 88 thousand in Belgium, 64 thousand in Italy and 52 thousand in France; outside the five, the largest communities are in Czechia (around 393,000) and Spain (over 250,000). The headline figure does not, however, reflect strategic weight. Italy, with a relatively small current wave, has the largest established Ukrainian labor migration diaspora in Western Europe: officially around 230,000–250,000 people, with estimates including informal employment reaching half a million. This older diaspora is structurally inseparable from the new wave and constitutes a resource rather than a vulnerability. Refugee employment ranges from around 15% in Belgium and 32% in France to 37% in Germany and 69% in Poland (on different counting bases, so these figures are a guide rather than a ranking).

The legal status of most refugees remains temporary. On July 30, 2026 the Council adopted Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1912, in force from August 5. Under Article 2, protection is granted to new applicants only if they comply with military service obligations under Ukrainian law; the requirement does not apply to those who already held protection as of July 30, 2026. The framework for the next stage is set by the Council Recommendation of September 16, 2025 on a coordinated transition out of temporary protection through other legal statuses or sustainable voluntary return. None of the five focus countries has yet translated it into a national strategy for transition to permanent residence. The result is a regime of prolonged legal uncertainty – “permanent temporariness”, in which a person extends their status six or eight times in a row without a clear legal prospect. This regime holds people in a state of unfinished choice and increases their vulnerability to manipulative narratives.

The practical content of temporary protection is diverging between countries, and for Ukrainians this means different life trajectories for 2026–2028. Germany is moving toward tougher activation: people who arrived after April 1, 2025 receive benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act (around 441 euros as against 563), and from July 1, 2026 the Bürgergeld was replaced by the Grundsicherung, with an obligation to accept any feasible work. Poland has tied social support to integration behavior: from 2026, the 800+ payment for Ukrainian citizens requires formal employment of one of the parents, the child’s attendance at a Polish school and actual residence in the country. The Czech Republic was the first to open a regulated exit from temporariness: a special long-term residence permit for economically self-sufficient persons, in which 56,500 people expressed interest in 2026. The common vector: host states are moving from unconditional humanitarian support to conditional support tied to employment and children’s education – a double-edged process that accelerates integration and makes the “anchors” still heavier.

1.2. Assimilation or strengthening of identity: empirical picture

A key result of the INRS study refutes the thesis that “dissolution” into European societies is the dominant trajectory. For the overwhelming majority of respondents in all five countries, emigration strengthened rather than weakened Ukrainian identity. The most visible manifestation is the mass switch to Ukrainian, recorded even among recently Russian-speaking people from Odesa, Kharkiv and the Donetsk region. To this is added the active construction of “third places” – Saturday schools, cultural centers, NGOs. Three identity types were distinguished: “conscious Ukrainians” – the largest group; the “awakened”, who switched to Ukrainian only abroad; and the “ambivalent and depoliticized”, most vulnerable to Russian propaganda.

The risk of assimilation is instead concentrated by age. For primary school children without a Ukrainian-language environment, complete assimilation is possible within 2–3 years, and Saturday schools alone do not halt this dynamic. For young people aged 18–25, European universities and the labor market become natural “anchors”. Older people close themselves into a family “cocoon”. In terms of adaptation strategies, six cross-cutting types recur: “active builders”, “transit passengers”, “institutional leaders”, “young integrators”, the “ambivalent” and the “isolated”. The core of vulnerability consists of the last two types. The sharpest intersection in the sample is a young man in social isolation, and the most resilient core is active middle-aged women.

1.3. Intentions to return: polarization by age and gender

According to the seventh wave of the UNHCR survey “Lives on Hold” (December 2025 – January 2026), 49% of refugees hope or plan to return, as against 61% in 2024. The intention depends sharply on the war’s end: with territorial integrity restored, 65% say they are likely to return; without the occupied territories – only 32%. The INRS data refine this picture: there is a systematic gap between declaration and behavior, and four positions were distinguished in the sample. Firm return is characteristic of the 55+ generation and of entrepreneurs with assets in Ukraine. Return depending on circumstances is the largest group – “active waiting”. Firm staying is declared predominantly by young people aged 18–30 and by women with small children who have completed a full integration cycle. A separate position is the “cycle across countries”.

Across all five countries the phenomenon of the “School Rubicon” recurs: after 2–3 years of a child’s integration into the local school system, the family effectively takes the decision not to return “on behalf of the parents”. The child becomes the strongest predictor of the subsequent trajectory. The priority instruments are those that work with the “child” dimension – Saturday schools, Ukrainian-language platforms and distance programs of Ukrainian schools.

The second marker is the “point of no return”, which arrives at around the third to fifth year of residence. This is the moment when the combined weight of the “anchors” here exceeds the weight of the “anchors” in Ukraine. Once this point has been passed, the cost of return rises sharply, and return policies encounter existential resistance.

Over the 2026–2028 horizon a new factor is added – naturalization and transitional statuses. For part of the 2022 wave, the periods required to acquire citizenship or permanent residence in EU countries will begin to expire precisely within this window. The Ukrainian context has meanwhile changed fundamentally: since January 16, 2026, Law No. 4502-IX has been in force, legalizing multiple citizenship: the citizenship of partner states can now be acquired without loss of Ukrainian citizenship. This shifts the question from “will they return” to “will they retain the connection with Ukraine”: a host-country passport no longer means an automatic break, and the task of policy becomes to turn multiple citizenship into a channel for maintaining that connection rather than the final full stop of emigration.

1.4. Attitudes to war and RF: dominant position and risk zones

The dominant position of respondents everywhere in the sample is unequivocally pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian. The absolute majority reject the Russian Federation’s (RF) war against Ukraine, support the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and are wary of the idea of “peace at any price”. Ukrainians have become active agents of advocacy: rallies, hearings in the European Parliament, work with municipalities.

At the same time, the study recorded a number of zones of vulnerability. The most visible is the “depolarizing effect” of emigration: after moving, some respondents’ perception of the “Russian factor” became less categorical – not support for the RF, but a departure from a rigid “either–or”; most often these are people from eastern Ukraine who spoke Russian before the war. The second zone is vulnerability to narratives of “war fatigue” after 3–4 years of residence, especially in groups under high psychological strain (self-described manifestations of psycho-emotional strain are present in all 100 interviews; no sustained Ukrainian-language support was found in any of the five countries). The third is the “generational gap”: for adults the war is a defining experience, while for younger children Ukraine is “a fairy tale from mom’s phone”.

These zones do not make the community pro-Russian. They delineate the space in which Russian operational work finds points of entry. The inertia of pro-Ukrainian identity is a resource that, without institutional support, is quickly exhausted; the window for effective work to maintain it is 2026–2028.

II. KEY INSTRUMENTS OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON UKRAINIAN COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE

Analysis of the INRS research materials in the five countries, set against open data from European state institutions, think tanks and monitoring organizations, shows that Russian influence on the Ukrainian community in the EU operates not as a set of isolated actions but as a single adaptive architecture of six interconnected channels. The RF’s total spending on propaganda and influence operations is estimated at 1.5–2 billion dollars a year: the budget of the state media alone for 2026 amounts to 146.3 billion rubles (EEAS), while Debunk.org estimated 2022 spending at 1.9 billion dollars. On such a scale a symmetrical response is impossible and unnecessary; work must be targeted, at the nodes of greatest vulnerability.

2.1. Institutional backbone: ROC of Moscow Patriarchate and its satellites

The most institutionally developed and least addressed channel is the infrastructure of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. In the five focus countries the network of the ROC sphere numbers ~270–295 structures, and across Europe as a whole around 560–660; the flock of the three branches is estimated at 1.0–1.2 million people, and spending on the foreign network at 60–95 million dollars a year. The church field consists of three branches: the ROC proper (direct jurisdiction of Moscow), the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP; according to available data, the funding of this network is handled by Ukrainian oligarchs). A separate case is the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (PAOC; ~235–263 parishes): legally autocephalous, yet on the question of Ukrainian autocephaly it takes Moscow’s side. In Belgium, Orthodoxy is a recognized religion under the 1985 law, so parishes, including those of the ROC, are financed by the state. Against this infrastructure, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has 15 active communities in the five focus countries: 11 chaplaincy communities in Poland and 4 in Germany, with 14 of the 15 chaplains serving alongside secular jobs; the only institutional model is the Polish network. Outside the five focus countries, an OCU chaplaincy mission has operated in Czechia since August 2025, with communities in Brno and Prague. This asymmetry is not accidental: it stems from the provision of the 2019 Tomos under which the jurisdiction of the OCU is limited to the territory of Ukraine, while parishes in the diaspora fall within the canonical competence of the Ecumenical See. In Germany the ROC-sphere network numbers ~130 structures against ~4 OCU communities; in France, ~35–45 parishes and communities; in Italy, ~75–85 with the institutional core in Bari.

The most important element here is the very mechanics of drawing Ukrainian refugees into the parish environment and keeping them there, documented in the INRS report “The Russian Orthodox Church in Europe”. Seven practices recur in respondents’ accounts, each of them recorded in at least two independent sources:

• free children’s centers attached to parishes;
• free psychological trainings in Russian for the traumatized and lonely;
• material assistance through parishes during the first 6–12 months;
• linguistic mimicry: use of the tryzub (trident), services in Ukrainian, names such as “Ukrainian Orthodox community”;
• jurisdictional mimicry: “under Metropolitan Onufriy”, formally without mentioning Kirill;
• systematic collection of parishioners’ personal data (“the person with the notebook”);
• recruitment to “Russia against war” marches and May 9 events.

Two phenomena explain why conscious Ukrainian patriots continue to attend parishes of the ROC sphere. The first is the “normalized paradox”: the parishioner knows that the church belongs to Moscow but psychologically separates “liturgy” from “politics”, so that during the commemoration of Kirill they pray for Onufriy or Epiphanius, and “for the authorities” they pray for Ukrainian soldiers. The second is the “soundscape of home”: a Russian-language liturgy structurally holds a refugee from eastern and southern Ukraine in a pro-Russian parish as “the sound of home” rather than as a political choice. Hard delegitimization (“do not go to the ROC – it is the FSB”) does not work: the parishioner is aware of the affiliation anyway. The only effective approach is infrastructural displacement: a Ukrainian alternative of such density and visibility that choosing it becomes easier than sustaining the paradox.

The strongest cumulative influence and the most sophisticated documented mimicry are in Italy. The model case is a parish in Milan: a “multi-ethnic community under Metropolitan Onufriy”, with services in four languages – under the cover of the Romanian Patriarchate. Formally the community is registered within the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church, while, according to respondents’ testimony and open monitoring data, its actual ties and core personnel are oriented toward the Moscow vertical – which is why the parish is legally invisible to EU legal frameworks. At the same time, the Ukrainian presence in Italy exceeds the Russian one several times over (the Russian presence is around 50,000–120,000 people), and the critical mass for an OCU alternative already exists, in particular through UGCC communities. Italy is therefore potentially the most promising rather than the most difficult direction.

2.2. Pseudo-Ukrainian structures as “entry points” for infiltration

In all the countries studied, formally Ukrainian organizations working in fact in Russian interests were documented; the model is the same everywhere. Humanitarian aid serves as the “front door” through which narratives of “peace at any price” and “both sides are to blame” are spread; then come integration into diaspora events, softening narratives injected via their own people and, ultimately, the discrediting of real activists. According to the study’s materials, no systematic work on this channel was found: in four of the five countries there is neither a register of such organizations nor coordination between Ukrainian consulates and host-country security services.

2.3. Academic infiltration and cultural “soft power”

The academic channel operates synergistically: Russian-speaking lecturers shape a neutral or pro-Russian discourse on the war, while the schools of “Russian Slavic studies” produce experts for whom the “Russian region” is the natural lens. The sharpest documented case is the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium), where, according to respondents, the Ukrainian community was for years practically unable to hold its own events because of a powerful pro-Russian environment, while Russian lectures remain routine practice. In Italy, the Istituto Gino Germani report on Russian narratives in school textbooks (May 2025, presented in the Senate) recorded six Kremlin narratives in 28 school textbooks by the largest publishers. The range runs from “Kyivan Rus is the cradle of Russia” to the concept of the “Russian region”, in which Kyiv is called “the third city of the Russian region after Moscow and Saint Petersburg”. Cultural “soft power” (concerts, the “Russian House” in Brussels, film screenings) normalizes the Russian presence as “high culture”, making criticism of the RF look like “the intrusion of politics into art”.

2.4. Digital disinformation

The most dynamic channel. According to the French service VIGINUM (SGDSN), 77 operations of the Storm-1516 network were documented between August 2023 and March 2025, 35 of them directly against Ukraine. Doppelganger (cloning of European media) and Matriochka (spam attacks on journalists) operate in parallel. According to NewsGuard, the Storm-1516 campaigns against France and Germany alone produced 175,000 posts and 274 million views on the X platform from January 2025. These operations strike not at the Ukrainian community directly but at the European society around it. The influence on the diaspora comes primarily through Telegram – the main information platform for Ukrainians abroad. According to INRS materials and monitoring data, the narratives addressed to the diaspora are above all “Europe’s fatigue with Ukrainians” and the inevitable cancellation of payments, fear of mobilization (“they will get you abroad too”), the futility of returning, and the setting of those who left against those who stayed. A telling example is the Storm-1516 fakes portraying Ukrainian refugees as criminals or ungrateful dependents. The pattern in the INRS sample is common to all five countries: less news load – better psychological condition – more real action for Ukraine.

2.5. Everyday and passport-consular channel

The least visible but systemic channel. Russian consular institutions in the EU continue to issue passports to Ukrainians from the occupied territories, draw up notarial documents and register marriages and births. This creates a dual attachment: a refugee from the occupied territories cannot obtain some Ukrainian documents remotely and is forced to turn to Russian consulates. The everyday level (Russian-language schools, “russkiy mir” shops, restaurants, cultural clubs) works as a “soundscape” that structurally keeps a person within a Russian-speaking environment.

2.6. Political lobbying

The institutionally most dangerous channel. The Voice of Europe case (exposed by the Belgian and Czech security services in March 2024) revealed a system for directly buying pro-Russian narratives from European parliamentarians; then Prime Minister Alexander De Croo publicly confirmed these facts. According to Czech intelligence, the network paid politicians in at least six EU countries – Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary. Resolutions 2540 (2024) and 2567 (2024) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe explicitly recognized the ROC as an instrument of Russian influence, yet their implementation at national level remains fragmentary.

2.7. Cumulative effect

The main thing about Russian influence is its architectural character. The six channels do not add up, they reinforce one another: the ROC’s institutional presence legitimizes cultural “soft power”, which forms an audience for pseudo-Ukrainian structures; their narratives resonate with digital operations, which open a window of normality for political lobbying. Weakening one channel in one country does not neutralize the system – the load is redistributed to other nodes; the response must be equally networked and coordinated.

III. RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendations are grouped into three priority tiers, with responsible actors identified for each.

3.1. Immediate recommendations (priority 1)

Recommendation 1. Activating the “diaspora resource” through the Mission of Ukraine to the EU and the embassies in the five countries. The total number of people with temporary protection in the five countries is around 2.4 million, of whom adults account for roughly two thirds – a resource of advocacy, economic contribution and political pressure that is currently not coordinated centrally. A coordination mechanism, “Ukrainian Diaspora Policy 2026–2028”, is proposed under the auspices of the MFA together with the Ministry of Social Policy, with quarterly reporting. The estimated cost is 1.5–2 million euros a year.

Recommendation 2. Initiating a dialogue with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the provision of the Tomos that limits the jurisdiction of the OCU to the territory of Ukraine. The impossibility of registering OCU parishes outside Ukraine’s canonical territory is the structural source of church asymmetry; without adjusting it, any other work on the religious track is symptomatic. Diplomatic work along the Kyiv – Constantinople – Phanar line requires coordination between the MFA, the Office of the President, the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) and religious structures.

Recommendation 3. Creating a centralized register of pseudo-Ukrainian structures and pro-Russian channels of influence. A register with a transparent verification procedure and an appeal mechanism, accessible to the Mission of Ukraine to the EU, embassies, consulates and, on request, partner EU security services. Sources: the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) and the Center for Countering Disinformation (NSDC), with European monitoring organizations. The maintenance of the register and the transfer of data to partners must comply with EU personal data protection law (GDPR).

3.2. Second-tier recommendations (priority 2)

Recommendation 4. Systematic support for the network of Saturday schools in the five countries. The existing coverage of Saturday schools (by expert estimates, from under 1.5% in Germany to a few percent elsewhere) is critically insufficient given the speed of children’s assimilation (2–3 years). A start-up program is proposed to fund premises, materials and coordinators. Responsibility is shared by the MFA, the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) and the Ministry of Social Policy.

Recommendation 5. A support program for male refugees. Middle-aged men in emigration are a documented vulnerability group: loss of professional identity, “deskilling”, isolation and, in the most acute cases, a shift into risk groups. The specifically female infrastructure of communities, created by women aged 35–50, does not work for these men; targeted mentoring, retraining and psychological assistance programs are needed. Responsibility: the MFA, the Ministry of Social Policy and partner NGOs.

Recommendation 6. Launching Ukrainian-language psychological support at state level. Systematic Ukrainian-language assistance was found in none of the five countries. A pilot distance platform with vetted psychologists is proposed, covering the critical age groups (children aged 10–17, men aged 30–55, women aged 60+). A partnership of the Ministry of Health (MOH), the Ministry of Social Policy and NGO platforms, with EU fundraising.

Recommendation 7. The economic narrative as a quick win. Available estimates point to a positive contribution by Ukrainian refugees to host economies (GDP contribution is not identical to the net fiscal effect). According to Deloitte’s assessment for UNHCR, in Poland the refugees’ contribution to GDP rose from 1.5% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2024 (98.7 billion zlotys, or around 23.1 billion euros); employment among working-age Ukrainians is 69% as against 75% among Poles. The MFA, together with the embassies, could launch a coordinated communication campaign, “Ukrainians are a contribution, not a burden”, as a direct response to the “war fatigue” narrative.

3.3. Third-tier measures (sustainability)

Recommendation 8. Accreditation of leading diaspora NGOs in the European Parliament register – an instrument for advancing Ukrainian topics in European bodies.

Recommendation 9. Systematizing “quick wins” at municipal level: replicating the Milan precedent (blocking pro-Russian events in municipal halls through pressure from pro-Ukrainian councilors) in other large EU cities.

Recommendation 10. Scaling up the OCU chaplaincy network on the Polish model to the countries with the sharpest deficit: Germany – 4 existing OCU parishes, Belgium – 0, France and Italy – practically 0. This is a line parallel to Recommendation 2 that works even without revising the restrictive provision of the Tomos.

Recommendation 11. Introducing the institution of deaconesses in OCU communities abroad. The most resilient core of communities everywhere is active women, who created the existing infrastructure of the diaspora. The institution of deaconesses would give this group a canonically formalized role and strengthen the OCU’s presence where priests are lacking. The question falls to the Holy Synod of the OCU; support is best handled in a single package with Recommendations 2 and 10.

Recommendation 12. An interim review of all lines of work at the end of 2027 to redistribute resources to the most effective ones in 2028.

3.4. Strategic horizon

The window for effective work closes at the boundary of the third to fifth year of residence for the 2022 wave: it is precisely in 2026–2027 that a critical mass passes the “point of no return”. The same period sees the peak need for psychological support and the peak of the Russian information campaign. Once the window has closed, the cost of any action rises sharply and its effectiveness falls. The synchronization of these three processes makes 2026–2028 the moment when systematic work delivers the maximum effect from minimum investment.

The publication is prepared under the project “Strengthening the Analytical Capabilities of the Foreign Policy Decision-Making with the Civil Society” of the Centre for International Security with the support of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Ukraine.

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