Geography of interregional migrations of population of Ukraine in conditions of war

Abstract

out migration were ascertained. Problems of geography of migrations in population of Ukraine have become specifically painful and pressing since Russia’s invasion in 2014 and could not but tell on migration causes, directions, scope, intensity and dynamics. The scope and the directions of Ukrainian interregional migration flows have at last shown certainty in the pre-war period (2006–2013) with the coefficient of parameter stability amounting to 0,127. There appeared spatial regularities, namely, the capital of the country possessed the highest attractiveness power; the number of population was gradually growing in some regions such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Chernivtsi Oblasts, Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol; the majority of regions (20) showed the out migration; the maximal negative net balance of migration was characteristic for the Donbas oblasts, the southern and the central macro-regions. The war period (2014–2021) was distinctive for essential polarization of the parameters of interregional migration. Kyiv Oblast had become an obvious leader in the attraction of migrants from other regions of Ukraine with the net balance grown 5,5 times in comparison to the period of peaceful years; the migrants were intensely arriving to the capital and the Kharkiv and the Odesa oblasts; the net balance of migration changed from negative to positive values in Dnipropetrovsk and western Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts; significant growth was shown in migrants leaving the zones directly adjacent to scenes of fighting, this resulting in negative net balance of migration for the Donetsk Oblast (3,9 times), Luhansk Oblast (2,1 times), and Zaporizhzhia Oblast (1,8 times), with still big values of negative net balance in the Kherson and the Mykolayiv oblasts; a new category of unwilling migrants – internally displaced persons – appeared in Ukraine in connection with war activity. Russia’s large-scale war against Ukraine (from 24 February 2022) had caused significant flows of coerced migration raising the number of refugees, internally displaced persons, temporarily protected persons, forcibly brought out persons, etc. It was almost 6,5 million people who migrated within the territory of Ukraine in the first month of full-scale aggression (3,6 million people left abroad), the mid-May 2022 showed 7,1 million people being the internally displaced persons; with that, the essential number of internally displaced persons (4,5 million people) have returned to the places of their permanent residence. Migration within Ukraine takes place depending on the geography of war activities. According to the IOM, the number of officially registered internally displaced persons have now become stable amounting to 3,6 million people. Keywords: population, migration, regions, interregional migration, war, Ukraine.