UN: more than 9.6 million Ukrainians remain refugees and displaced persons

According to a new Global Trends report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 9.6 million Ukrainians continue to be refugees and internally displaced persons.

According to the report, as of the end of 2025, 5.9 million Ukrainian refugees were outside Ukraine, the majority of whom live in European countries. Another 3.7 million people hold internally displaced person status and remain within Ukraine. In addition, more than 10.8 million residents of the country are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance — the UN links this to the destruction of civilian and energy infrastructure.

Over the past year, approximately 718,000 Ukrainians were recorded as having returned — both from abroad and from frontline areas. Ukraine was among the six countries in the world with the highest number of returning refugees and internally displaced persons. At the same time, the UN emphasizes that such returns are not always a voluntary choice: many Ukrainians are forced to return due to the exhaustion of financial resources as well as the reduction or termination of support programs in European Union countries. Security threats and the risk of new strikes in Ukraine remain at a high level.

The organization also notes that many people returned to conditions of destroyed infrastructure, limited access to basic services, and ongoing threats to life.

Globally, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes due to wars, violence, and persecution stood at 117.8 million — 4% less than the previous year. This is the first decline in the figure in the past decade. In 2025, approximately 14.7 million people returned home — the second-highest figure since 1965.

As of the end of 2025, more than 20 million forcibly displaced persons were in Europe, including 5.2 million Ukrainian refugees. The main host countries remain Germany, which accounts for 23% of the total number of refugees from Ukraine, and Poland — 19.5%. Ukraine remains among the five countries in the world with the largest flows of refugees and people in need of international protection.

European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert stated that the EU has not yet made a final decision on the possible extension of the temporary protection regime for Ukrainian citizens beyond March 2027. Discussions between the European Commission and the member states of the Union are ongoing.

Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, reported that as of March 1, 4.4 million Ukrainians are in EU countries — mainly those who left in 2022. According to her, people continue to go abroad, but far less rapidly than at the beginning of 2022.