No Place Like Home

After one year of war, 17 million displaced Ukrainians face a tough truth: Most will never go back

- MICHAEL WASIURA

ONE YEAR SINCE THE START OF RUSSIA'S FULLscale invasion, roughly half of Ukraine's pre-war population of 40 million people has been driven from their homes, creating the largest refugee crisis of the 21st century. The big, unanswerable question: When, if ever, will they be able to return home again? As the conflict continues to displace additional Ukrainians every day, the resulting uncertainly has the potential to reshape a continent scarred by its deadliest war in decades.

The experience of Yura Skobolev, a displaced father of five from Ukraine's southern Kherson region, reflects the dilemma that families face. Skobolev, his wife, and children endured eight months of occupation after the war began but were finally, and ironically, forced to flee after Ukrainian forces took back the territory, when Russia began launching retributive artillery strikes from the opposite bank of the Dnipro River.

"When we call our neighbors back in the village, you can hear the cows and chickens in the background," Skobolev tells Newsweek. "The neighbors say, 'Oh, everything here is fine.' Then, five minutes later, they say, 'Give me a minute to get down into the cellar. They're shelling us again.""

Skobolev and his family, unsure of where they will go next, are currently living in temporary housing in Odesa. They are among the millions of displaced Ukrainians who have faced a similar dilemma since the war began. Of those, 8 million are now located in other countries in Europe. Just under 6 million are still in Ukraine-renting apartments in the country's relatively quiet West, staying with relatives who can offer a spare sofa or finding a bed in dormitories set up by aid organizations both international and domestic. Nearly 3 million other Ukrainians, some voluntarily and some not, have migrated to locations within the internationally recognized borders of the Russian Federation.