Nearly half of the million Ukrainian refugees who fled to Germany say they intend to stay in the country “forever”, or at least for years.
While many countries were more than willing to accept massive waves of Ukrainians fleeing the war against Russia amid the widespread belief that they would be keen to return home to rebuild their country after the Russian invasion, new research has cast doubt on this notion.
The study, which was carried out by the government’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and Federal Institute for Population Research in conjunction with NGOs, found that 44 per cent of the 7,000 refugees surveyed said they want to stay in Germany “forever” or at least for “a few more years”, German broadcaster NTV reported.
This represents a five per cent increase since last Summer, likely due to the prospect of a peace settlement still remaining elusive after over 500 days of direct conflict with Russia.
Meanwhile, just 31 per cent of those polled said they want to return to their homeland upon the conclusion of the war and 23 per cent were not sure what they wanted to do.
At present, the status of Ukrainians as refugees in Germany is only valid until March of next year.
The survey also found that just 18 per cent of the one million refugees were able to find employment in Germany as of the start of the year, just slightly more than the 17 per cent who did as of the prior summer. However, over two-thirds of those polled said they hoped to find a job within the next year.
With the vast majority of the refugees in Germany being women and children — given that the Ukrainian government has required that able-bodied men of fighting age take up arms against the Russians — a lack of good childcare options has been one of the main impediments to employment among the Ukrainian population in the country.
There does seem to be a desire to assimilate into Germany, with 75 per cent of those surveyed reporting that they have either completed or are currently enrolled in a German language course.
Some Ukrainians have previously struggled to integrate into other countries, such as England, where some have even reported feeling less safe than in their war-torn country than in multicultural cities such as Birmingham, which is now a minority-majority city. Earlier this year, one Ukrainian woman told Britain’s Channel 4 that she wanted to leave the area as she thought it was too dangerous because there were “too many Muslims and too many people with different skin colours”.