Majority of Ukrainians want to leave Ukraine

The number of Ukrainians who want to leave their homeland for foreign countries has increased over the past year, a TNS Online Track survey suggests. Sixty-five percent of respondents said they intended to move abroad

“One third of those polled said they had no chance to emigrate while one in eight people said they would like to leave the country temporarily to wait for the situation to stabilize,” the TNS Online Track said. At the same time, 20% of Ukrainians, which is twice as many as revealed by a survey last year, are determined to leave Ukraine permanently.

Ukrainian men (24%) are more inclined to move for permanent residence abroad; one third of old people said they were not ready to leave their homeland while one fifth of young Ukrainians replied they were ready to go to live in foreign countries, the survey revealed.

The TNS Online Track opinion poll was carried out in all parts of Ukraine in July among urban population aged 18-55.

Ukraine’s migration levels have been on the rise in recent years with 900,600 people leaving the country in. Almost 750,000 of them left for Russia where they sought a refugee status. About 81,000 Ukrainians chose Belarus as a new place of residence; almost 5,000 people have moved to live in European countries. According to statistics, almost 55% of Ukrainians have left their homeland for other countries over the past two years.

Most of those who are leaving Ukraine are desperate work migrants who have given up all hope to improve their lives at home. All in all, 4.5 million job seekers have officially left Ukraine since 1991. However, experts believe the real figures are much higher and could amount to 7-7.5 million people.