Lidia, the name is fictional, she is 12 and a half years old and spent the last few in Italy. She left theUkraine shortly after the Russian invasion. Now he is returning to his country, even if the war is still there. He has spent the last two and a half months in an Italian class, a seventh grade. Technology and social media have helped her in an integration that had the biggest obstacle in her language. She has always kept in touch with her Ukrainian school, she has taken distance tests. She now she returns with the hope of reuniting with friends and teachers.
His case is one of the many in recent weeks. Millions of people fled from Ukraine in the first weeks of the war, now many more are returning to the country. Frontexthe European border protection agency, has registered more people returning to Ukraine from Europe than those leaving it.
2.3 million Ukrainians have returned to their homeland since the beginning of the war according to Frontex, 2.1 for theUN High Commissioner for Refugees. There are 260 in the last week of the count, the one that led to the 100-day anniversary of the Russian invasion. At the moment, in European Union countries, there are about 5.3 million Ukrainian citizens, more than 7 million with those, non-Ukrainians, who resided in the country and left it.
Half of those who return are men who are ready to fight. The others are the women and children who formed long lines at the borders in the first weeks of the conflict. The will is to go home even if you stop in a different part of Ukraine than where you lived. Many go to Odessa and Lviv, in the western part of the country, the city that has not known attacks since 8 April. In the South East the fighting is still alive. There have also been many returns to Kiev and around fifty embassies have returned.
– Ukraine, 100 days of a war with no end in sight
– Ukraine, the story of Vitaly and Alla, married and dead in the steel mill
Source: Vanity Fair