According to the report ‘Refugees from Ukraine in Poland’ conducted by the Eastern Europe Studies at the University of Warsaw, 58% of refugees intend to return to Ukraine and 29% plan to stay in Poland permanently; 63% of Ukrainians intend to work in Poland and 20% want to live on savings. More than 4.386 million people have entered Poland since the beginning of the Russian aggression.

The majority of respondents (58%) intend to return to Ukraine after the end of the war, and 29% of respondents want to stay in Poland permanently. Only 12% said they planned to go to a country other than Ukraine, with 26% indicating Germany, 16% – USA, 11% – the United Kingdom, 10% – Sweden, 8% – Slovakia and 7% – Canada.

63% of Ukrainians intend to work in Poland. 20% of them intend to live on savings or from their own resources, 6% want to apply for refugee status and 11% chose another solution. 17% of the Ukrainians are highly qualified professionals, 15% – are teachers and workers in the education sector, and 7% are manual workers and technicians or non-employed persons.

The vast majority of Ukrainians indicated the Malopolska (39%) and Mazowieckie (38%) provinces as their preferred province. They were followed by Lubelskie (2%), Kujawsko-Pomorskie (2%) and Dolnośląskie (2%). As a place of residence, 69% of respondents chose a large city with more than 200,000 inhabitants, and 10% – a city with 50,000-200,000 inhabitants. – a city with 50-200 thousand inhabitants, 4%- a city with up to 50 000 inhabitants and only 3% a village.

The survey was conducted from 23 March to 3 April using face-to-face individual interviews in Ukrainian with Ukrainian citizens who left Ukraine and came to Poland after 24 February 2022, on a sample of 400 people. 85% of the respondents were women.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński