Just three months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Marwa Yehea wanted to return home to kyiv.
Ms Yehea, 31, from Syria, fled the Ukrainian capital with her two daughters in February when the war broke out. In those early days of uncertainty, she was pregnant with her third child and they spent weeks in Germany.
But she was determined to be home by the time her son was born. In May 2022, they returned to kyiv in time for his birth.
“The war is not over and the psychological consequences are exhausting,” Ms. Yehea said in an interview in kyiv this summer. “But you get used to it. And above all we, as Syrians who have emerged from the war, well, here we are safe.”
In the decades before the Russian invasion, kyiv had become an increasingly cosmopolitan city, a destination for international students and professionals seeking to live in Europe. Before the war, some 293,600 foreign nationals resided permanently in Ukraine, according to 2020 government figures.
Some have made the unlikely decision to continue living here, even as war ravages the country and millions of people have fled. In some cases, returning to their country of origin is impossible and they have remained in Ukraine rather than becoming refugees a second time. Others simply don’t want to give up the lives they’ve built in the country.
“We were happy here – our life here was good, praise God,” said Ms Yehea, who had lived in Ukraine since 2012. “We lived a comfortable life here. »
International students also returned, weighing the value of an affordable education against the risks of war.
Wang Zheng, 23, from China, had been studying in Ukraine since 2017 and was just starting to study for his master’s degree when the war broke out. He returned to China and continued his studies online, but returned to Kyiv last spring. His education “is the most important thing,” he said, adding, “I can’t give up.”
It was in kyiv that he first met his girlfriend, Wang Danyang, 26, a trained opera singer also from China. She returned to kyiv in July and they moved in together. They want to build their lives here, Mr. Wang said.
“I feel like it’s my second home,” he said.
Some 76,500 foreign students were enrolled at Ukrainian universities in 2020, with the largest percentage coming from India.
Two students from that country, Jaanvi, 20, who goes by one legal name, and her roommate, Mary Fiona, 22, were studying medicine in kyiv when the war broke out. Jaanvi had arrived in December 2021, just months before the Russian invasion began, and fled four days after the fighting began.
She and other Indian students were told that Ukrainians had priority to board trains leaving the city, and she waited for hours. She eventually managed to reach the Polish border, but foreign students again faced delays, a problem many of them come from Asia and Africa. told at the time.
Ms Fiona, who lived in Ukraine for four years, said she had experienced some discrimination in Ukraine before the war, which she described as “painful”, but overall her experience had been positive while living here.
“I love this country, that’s why I came back,” Ms Fiona said.
In January 2023, the two women returned to Ukraine, undeterred by airstrikes.
“If you have to die, you can also die in your house,” Jaanvi said. “It all depends on fate. There are bunkers and Ukrainians live here too.”
Ali Saleh, 25, a Chadian citizen who grew up in Saudi Arabia after his family fled the civil war, was studying biomedical engineering at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute when Russian forces arrived. He fled to Paris for a few months but returned to kyiv in early 2023.
For now, Mr. Saleh is focusing on his studies and work. In his spare time he loves cooking, but it can be a lonely life – many of his friends have decided not to return.
“I came back and the country was not in the best shape,” Mr. Saleh said, describing last winter’s recurring power outages and the threat of airstrikes. But he said he hopes one day he can tell his children and grandchildren everything.
Zyad Hakim, 24, had spent five years studying mechanical engineering at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute when the war broke out and was unwilling to simply abandon the work he had done.
Mr. Hakim, originally from Morocco, returned there at the start of the war, then returned to kyiv in January 2023 to finish his final semester. He graduated this summer and then returned to Morocco.
“I had to come here and finish it,” he said in kyiv, just days before his departure. “Otherwise, all my work would go down the gutter, into the abyss.”
Other immigrants say they are determined to stay for the long term, even if the war disrupts their lives.
Abdaljalil Rejee, Palestinian doctor, has lived in Ukraine for 20 years. He left for Britain with his wife and two children at the start of the war, but returned to kyiv in the summer of 2022, eager to return to work and see his children return to their routine. In kyiv, despite the war, their lives returned to a normal rhythm. They picnic in the park on weekends, spend time with friends at the Kiev Islamic Center, and their children are back at school.
“We have a choice, but we prefer to be in Ukraine,” said Dr Rejee, 39. “We know our future is here and we will stay here. »
Dr. Rejee’s extended family lives in the West Bank, and with the war now raging in Gaza as well, he worries about their safety – even as they worry about his. “It is very difficult to see children, women and people in general being killed every day,” he said.
Even those whose lives here have not been ideal continue to call Ukraine home.
Abdullah Hossein al-Rabii, 40, owner of a popular restaurant in kyiv near the Islamic Center, moved there in 2013 after fleeing Syria’s civil war. He serves falafel, hummus, shawarma and other Middle Eastern dishes, and can usually be found at the grill out front, greeting his mostly Ukrainian customers with a warm smile as smoke swirls around them .
“I’m not stuck in Ukraine,” he said. “I do not want to leave.”
But Mr. al-Rabii lives in limbo, like thousands of other Syrians who have come here. Ukraine has never granted them full refugee status. “additional protection”, which is temporary and does not allow any path to permanent residence.
Mr Rabii’s Syrian passport has expired and he has not seen his family in Syria – or left Ukraine – in a decade.
Many Syrians from Ukraine fled elsewhere in Europe when the war broke out, seeking safety and a more stable future. But Mr. al-Rabii, married to a Ukrainian, has pledged to stay.
“The worst thing is that before you were a refugee, then you fled, and you could become a refugee again,” he said. “That’s what would hurt the most.”
Daria Mitiuk And Alexandre Tchoubko contributed reporting from Kyiv.
