In the UK, where Reform has announced its new tough immigration policies and the other parties are struggling to keep up with Reform's populist appeal, it's interesting to look back at the migration crisis in Ukraine.

A Statista chart claims: In total, around 5.1 million Ukrainian refugees were registered across Europe and 5.6 million worldwide as of May 2025

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/]-

Although it mentions this in a 'supplementary note', bizarrely the chart does not include Russia as a destination for migrants, where the number may be higher than even Germany or Poland according to an ICMPD policy report:

[https://www.icmpd.org/file/download/63418/file/PP%20Policy%20Brief%20-%20Russian%20Migration%20Policy%20EN.pdf]

Ukrainians have occupied a specific place in the [Russian] Compatriots Program, with over one million likely fleeing the war in Donbass for Russia since 2014.

The Russian government granted Ukrainians a form of temporary protection, with a simplified process towards a temporary resident permit. The latter allowed them immediate eligibility to seek citizenship through regional migration offices.

Russia’s 2022 invasion precipitated another Ukrainian migratory wave to Russia. UNHCR placed the figure at over 1.23 million at the end of 2023, higher than numbers in Germany and Poland.

There seems to be a deliberate campaign in the MSM not to give any publicity to the fact that a significant number of Ukrainian migrants went East and not West, as this does not fit the 'good' and 'evil' narrative promoted by the MSM. Why would over a million Ukrainians flee to 'evil' Russia?

While one understands that after the coup in 2014 and when the SMO/war started in 2022, fleeing to the West would be an attractive option for many western Ukrainians who were able and motivated to leave, especially given the fast-tracking and support provided by the UK and EU to migrants from Ukraine, it doesn't explain why over a million went east.

Leaving aside the claim that Russia 'kidnapped' thousands of Ukrainian children for the express purpose of 'russifying' them in re-education camps in Russia, the obvious question is why did all these other Ukrainians voluntarily head for Russia - the 'enemy' - rather than stay in the eastern regions of Ukraine?

And the obvious answer is that to them at least, the enemy was not Russia but the post-coup Kiev regimes with their repressive actions in eastern Ukraine (that the Minsk accords failed to curtail), nor was it the de-stabilising actions of 'separatists' forcing them to go to Russia.

Equally, after Russia re-annexed Crimea, why wasn't there a mass migration of Crimeans north into Ukraine if they were now occupied by an 'enemy' and even after the Kiev regime cracked down on Crimea by depriving it of power and water? You would have thought there would be a Maidan-style uprising by Crimean Ukrainians but there was not and more tellingly, the west did not try to foment one.

Nobody can deny that the coup and the SMO/war has proven to be a tragedy for Ukraine and Ukrainians but ignoring reality isn't going to help in understanding the complexity of the situation and the nuances that will be needed for any peace talks.