EDITORIAL: 1.5 million Ukrainians returned to war zones — the impossible homecoming the world ignores

EDITORIAL: 1.5 million Ukrainians returned to war zones — the impossible homecoming the world ignores

Introduction: Coming home when "home" is under the bombs

The paradox of return in a war that continues

They came back. Despite everything. Despite the shells falling a few kilometers away. Despite gutted houses, mined streets, windows boarded up with cardboard. 1.55 million Ukrainians — accounting for 37% of the 4.2 million returnees counted since the start of the war — chose to go back to front-line areas, where Russian strikes are not an abstract possibility but a daily reality. This figure, revealed by World Vision in its June 2026 report, is not a statistic of triumph. It is a statistic of human despair, of bonds to a land that nothing can sever, and of a humanitarian emergency that the Western world still treats as a second-order problem.

Why go back when sirens are still screaming? The answer is not simple and it is not singular. Elderly people who refuse to die far from their homes. Parents returning because children who stayed behind need them. Farmers who know that if nobody plants, nobody eats. People who can no longer afford to stay abroad as the war drives up the cost of Ukrainian life. People who would rather die at home than survive in the shame of exile. These decisions are all human. They are all understandable. And they create a humanitarian situation of a complexity that standard emergency plans cannot address.

A World Vision report that disturbs

The organization World Vision, which has reached 2.3 million people in Ukraine since March 2022, published a report in June 2026 whose findings should have triggered an urgent international response. Instead, they triggered press releases, committee meetings, and the usual silence that accompanies uncomfortable statistics. 59% of children who returned to active zones have heard rocket or artillery fire. 49% have felt fear. These figures are not victimization journalism — they are the measure of a traumatized generation growing up under the bombs, with psychological consequences that will last for decades.

The report also identifies a revealing demographic detail: 39% of returnees had already been displaced before the full-scale war of 2022, dating back to the conflicts in the Donbas since 2014. These people are living through their second, sometimes third forced displacement and return over twelve years. The idea that a population can indefinitely absorb these repeated shocks without structured psychological support is an illusion we must abandon.

The profile of returnees — who they are and why they came back

Reasons for return: attachment, economics, family

Qualitative studies on Ukrainian returnees reveal a diversity of motivations that defies simplistic narratives. Attachment to land and home is the primary reason cited by displaced persons who chose to return, particularly among the elderly and farmers. For a Ukrainian peasant, their land is not an asset — it is their identity. Leaving forever is a death before death. And going back, even under the bombs, is a way of reaffirming who one is.

Economic reasons are the second category. The cost of living in host European countries has made the situation of Ukrainian refugees increasingly precarious. In 2025-2026, refugee allowances in several EU countries were reduced or time-limited, pushing families toward an impossible choice: stay in poverty abroad or return to danger at home. This is not a free choice — it is an economic constraint disguised as a personal decision. These people deserve better than that.

The geography of return — buffer zones and civilian vanguard

Return is not uniformly distributed across Ukrainian territory. World Vision data shows a particular concentration in regions that were briefly occupied then liberated — Kherson, parts of Kharkiv, areas of Mykolaiv. These regions combine restored accessibility with a proximity to the front that keeps them under the direct threat of Russian strikes. Returnees in these areas are often people who want to "be there" when reconstruction begins — and who accept the risk as the price of that presence.

The geography of return also reveals something profound about the Ukrainian national psyche. Returning to dangerous areas is not perceived solely as an individual risk — it is perceived as a collective act of resistance. Staying home when the enemy wants you to leave is a refusal to cede the ground to destruction. It is a form of active non-violence: civilian presence as a protest against the forced deportation that Putin seeks to impose through his bombardments.

Children in war zones — a generation growing up under the bombs

59% heard gunfire — normalized trauma

59% of children who returned to active zones have heard artillery or rocket fire since returning. 49% report having felt fear significantly. These figures from the World Vision report document what psychologists call normalized vicarious traumatization — when trauma becomes so pervasive that it ceases to be recognized as trauma and is integrated into daily routine. A child who learns to recognize the sound of an approaching missile, who knows which corridor to lie down in when the sirens scream, who no longer cries because crying serves no purpose — that child is not brave. They are wounded.

The long-term consequences of this chronic exposure to wartime trauma on child development are well documented in the medical literature. Attachment disorders, learning difficulties, risk-taking behaviors in adolescence, persistent anxiety disorders in adulthood. Ukraine is accumulating a national psychological debt whose human and economic cost will manifest over several decades. This debt is not in humanitarian budgets. It is not in the Gdańsk discussions. It should be at the very top of the priority list.

Education under the bombs — underground schools

Thousands of Ukrainian children receive their education in underground shelters, in reinforced building corridors, or online from shelters. The Ukrainian government has invested in the construction of underground classrooms — a tragic euphemism for normalizing education under bomb threats. These infrastructures are necessary, but they are also a symbol of a situation that should not exist in a 21st-century Europe.

Repeated disruptions to the school curriculum have concrete effects on learning levels. Studies conducted in 2025 in conflict-affected areas show that Ukrainian children are on average between 12 and 18 months behind normal curricula in core subjects. This lag is not merely academic — it is a sign of profound disruption to the cognitive and social development that normally accompanies primary and secondary school years.

Food security in active zones — prices that have exploded

+80 to 90% price increases since 2022

Food prices in the most war-affected areas have increased by 80 to 90% since 2022, according to the World Vision report. This inflation is not the result of a general war economy — it is the direct consequence of the disruption of local supply chains, the destruction of storage and distribution infrastructure, and the shortage of agricultural labor in regions where men are mobilized. For a family with few resources in an active conflict zone, this price increase can represent the difference between eating and not eating.

Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters, and yet Ukrainian families on the front line cannot feed themselves properly. This dramatic contradiction illustrates the complete disconnect between macroeconomic figures — grain exports, GDP, trade balances — and the microeconomic reality of people living a few kilometers from the front lines. Poverty in a war zone is not an abstraction. It has a face, an address, and a child going to school on an empty stomach in an underground shelter.

Food safety nets — insufficient and insufficiently funded

The humanitarian plan for Ukraine 2026 is only 42.7% funded relative to identified needs — according to data from World Vision and UN agencies. This funding rate, already insufficient in normal times, is catastrophic in the context of active conflict zones. Humanitarian organizations working on the front line operate with cut budgets, reduced teams, and an intervention capacity that does not match the scale of needs.

The standard response from donor governments is that "the funds are there" — but that their release takes time, that coordination mechanisms must be respected, that assessment reports must be submitted before disbursements. In the world of humanitarian coordination meetings, this delay is acceptable. In a war zone where a family has not eaten properly in three days, it is not. Humanitarian bureaucracy has its logic. That logic sometimes kills.

Mental health — the invisible wound of 4.2 million returnees

The scale of untreated trauma

The World Vision report estimates that the vast majority of the 4.2 million returnees — and especially the 1.55 million in active zones — present symptoms of untreated post-traumatic stress. Mental health resources available in Ukraine are massively insufficient: the number of psychologists and psychiatrists trained in war trauma is a fraction of what is needed to address needs at this scale. The destruction of some healthcare infrastructure in conflict zones further complicates access.

Stigma around mental health remains a significant cultural barrier, particularly in rural communities and among men. Demobilized soldiers returning with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress syndromes. Displaced persons normalizing their chronic anxiety because they do not have the words to name it as an illness. Children whose disruptive behavior at school is treated as a discipline problem rather than a symptom of trauma. Ukraine will emerge from this war with a national mental health crisis that no one is yet fully planning to treat.

Psychosocial support programs — models that work

Organizations like World Vision, UNICEF, and local Ukrainian NGOs have developed community psychosocial support programs that have demonstrated their effectiveness in affected areas. Child-friendly spaces, support groups for parents, basic training for teachers and community workers on detecting and responding to signs of trauma — these low-cost interventions have a measurable impact on community resilience.

The difficulty is deploying them at the scale of needs, with reduced resources, in areas where access is limited by security. Innovations like telephone-based psychosocial support, mobile mental health apps adapted to the Ukrainian context, and peer-to-peer networks within displaced communities have been developed to address access constraints. They work. But they are underfunded and underknown.

The 3.7 million internally displaced — those who have not yet been able to return

Internal displacement as a permanent reality

While 4.2 million people have returned, 3.7 million Ukrainians remain displaced within the country — unable or unwilling to return to their communities of origin. These internally displaced persons (IDPs) are concentrated in the major cities of western and central Ukraine: Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Dnipro. Their presence has transformed these cities, creating pressure on housing markets, public services, and local labor markets.

The situation of the 3.7 million internally displaced is often considered less urgent than that of refugees abroad — because they are still in Ukraine, therefore "less far away." This logic is misleading. People who have left their homes since 2022, who live in temporary accommodation that is often inadequate, who have lost their social and professional networks, and who have no certainty of ever being able to return — these people have real humanitarian needs that do not disappear because they have not crossed an international border.

The 5.6 million abroad — the diaspora that funds and waits

The 5.6 million Ukrainians still abroad represent both a resource and a challenge. Their remittances to their families in Ukraine constitute a significant source of income for millions of Ukrainian households — an economic lifeline in a war that weighs heavily on domestic finances. But their prolonged absence also represents a loss of human capital that Ukraine cannot afford indefinitely, particularly in sectors like healthcare, education, and engineering that have critical labor shortages.

Surveys conducted in Ukrainian communities abroad show growing ambivalence about the question of return. The longer time passes, the more economic and social integrations in host countries stabilize, and the harder the decision to return becomes — especially if the war continues. Voluntary return programs put in place by the Ukrainian government with the support of the IOM (International Organization for Migration) have had modest results, suggesting that current return incentives do not compensate for the perceived risks and costs.

Civilian infrastructure damage in 2025 — the deadliest year

Strikes on energy, water, hospitals

The World Vision report confirms what military and humanitarian data consistently show: 2025 was the deadliest year for Ukrainian civilians since the start of the full-scale war. Russia's strategy of systematically targeting critical civilian infrastructure — power plants, water distribution networks, hospitals, civilian markets — reached an unprecedented intensity. Strikes on the electricity grid deprived entire regions of power for weeks on end in the middle of winter.

Data from the UN and human rights monitoring organizations documents a systematicity in these strikes that goes well beyond the notion of collateral damage. Hospitals struck repeatedly at the same location after being repaired. Markets hit at peak hours. Civilian shelters targeted. This systematicity is the signature of a deliberate strategy of civilian terrorization aimed at making normal life in Ukraine untenable — to force movements toward Russian-controlled territories or to break the will of resistance.

The humanitarian response — underfunded, overextended

With only 42.7% of the humanitarian plan funded, organizations working in Ukraine must make impossible choices: prioritize clean water or emergency shelter, medical care or child nutrition, psychosocial support or school reconstruction. These trade-offs are not questions of managerial efficiency — they are decisions about who suffers less and who suffers more. No humanitarian manager should have to make these calculations in a country that is a member of the Council of Europe.

Western donors who maintain their military commitment while leaving humanitarian funding at less than half of requirements send a problematic message: Ukrainians deserve to be armed to survive, but not to be fed, cared for, and psychologically accompanied while they survive. This asymmetry must be corrected — not by reducing military support, but by raising humanitarian support to where it should be.

The right to return versus safety — the unresolved tension

Can the return to danger zones be restricted?

A difficult ethical and legal question underlies any discussion of returnees to active zones: can governments — or should they — restrict the right of return for their own citizens on security grounds? The Ukrainian government has established mandatory exclusion zones in regions closest to the front, where civilians cannot reside. But buffer zones are gray, definitions evolve, and the pressure of populations wanting to return is intense.

Families returning to zones officially "discouraged" rather than "prohibited" are exercising their right to self-determination — but they also create obligations for emergency services, medical teams, and military units that sometimes have to evacuate them under fire. There is no simple solution to this tension. Overly strict restrictions feed resistance and push people to return without protection. Overly lax restrictions expose vulnerable populations and create operational burdens for military forces.

World Vision's approach — accompanying rather than prohibiting

World Vision advocates for an approach of accompaniment rather than prohibition — providing humanitarian services, security information, and practical support to people returning to risk areas, rather than pretending to be able to stop them. This pragmatic approach acknowledges a reality that forced displacement policies often ignore: people go back anyway. The question is whether this return happens with a minimum of support and information, or in a vacuum.

World Vision's mobile teams operate in areas close to the front to provide emergency services, assess the needs of returning communities, and document conditions. These teams themselves take considerable risks — several humanitarian workers have been wounded or killed in Ukraine since 2022. Their presence in these areas is an act of solidarity that deserves recognition and funding commensurate with their courage.

International humanitarian law — Russia's violations

Forced displacements as a weapon of war

International humanitarian law is clear: forced displacements of civilian populations constitute a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions. Russia's strategy of striking civilian infrastructure, creating habitable and uninhabitable zones through terror, and forcibly displacing populations in occupied territories toward Russia — all of this constitutes documented and repeated violations of IHL. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. Investigations are ongoing. Evidence is accumulating.

But international justice is slow, and violations continue while it deliberates. The fact that Putin is nominally targeted by an ICC arrest warrant has not changed his strategy of bombing Ukrainian civilians by one iota. International law is an essential framework — but it only has real value if the states that commit to it are willing to bear the political and diplomatic cost of that commitment. Too often, international law serves as a fig leaf for inaction that would be more honestly named as such.

The responsibility to protect — a principle that rings hollow

The principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), adopted by the UN in 2005, stipulates that the international community has a responsibility to act when a state fails to protect its citizens against mass crimes. In the Ukrainian case, the state — Kyiv — is trying to protect its citizens and failing because it lacks resources. The responsibility to protect should therefore translate into massive support for this protection capacity. Instead, we negotiate weapons delivery timelines, debate humanitarian funding conditions, and congratulate ourselves on conferences that produce commitments at 42.7% funding.

It is urgent that the West clearly name what it sees in Ukraine: a deliberate campaign of civilian terror conducted by the Russian army, with the objective of making uninhabitable a territory that Moscow has failed to conquer militarily. This clarity is not only moral — it is strategic. It allows the response to be calibrated to the scale of the crime, not to the scale of diplomatic comfort.

The return of men — after demobilization, toward what future

Demobilized soldiers returning to destroyed homes

A crucial aspect of the returnee problem concerns demobilized soldiers returning to their communities after months or years at the front. For many of them, the home they hoped to return to no longer exists — destroyed by strikes, occupied by strangers, or abandoned by their family who left abroad. This return to nothing, after having given everything, is a source of intense psychological distress that can quickly turn into social instability.

Countries that have managed post-conflict demobilization waves — the United States after Vietnam, Great Britain after the Falklands, Germany after the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan — learned at great cost that neglecting the reintegration of veterans creates lasting social crises. Ukraine will demobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the years following the end of the war. The structures to support their reintegration must be built now, not after.

The national reintegration program — a promising framework

The Ukrainian government launched in 2025 a National Veterans' Reintegration Program that includes components of mental health, vocational training, housing access, and business creation support. Resources allocated remain insufficient relative to the scale of the anticipated challenge, but the framework exists. Veterans' Houses have opened in several cities to provide a single point of contact for available services.

International partners, including the United States through the DOD and specialized NGOs, are contributing to the training of Ukrainian personnel in the management of combat trauma. The Czech Republic and the Baltic states have developed bilateral programs hosting Ukrainian soldiers in psychological recovery — allowing stays of a few weeks in a secure environment to begin the decompression process. These initiatives deserve to be scaled up and better funded.

What the West must do — a concrete list

Raise humanitarian funding to match the needs

The most immediate demand is also the simplest: at least double humanitarian funding for Ukraine to reach 100% of the identified plan. The sums involved are not comparable to military budgets or reconstruction commitments. We are talking about a few additional billion euros to feed children, provide clean water, and offer psychological support to people living under the bombs. This is not a sophisticated geopolitical investment — it is basic decency.

Beyond funding, the West must simplify the mechanisms for releasing humanitarian funds for Ukraine. Current procedures are designed for contexts of relative stability and are ill-adapted to the urgency of an active war. Pre-approved emergency funding mechanisms for Ukraine, unlocked automatically in the event of an escalation of strikes, would allow a faster humanitarian response more proportional to real needs.

Integrate the human dimension into all Ukraine discussions

The discussion on Ukraine in Western capitals is dominated by military, geopolitical, and financial concepts. That is necessary — but insufficient. The 1.55 million returnees in war zones are absent from discussions at the G7, from NATO briefings, from European Council meetings. Their existence, their situation, their needs should be a regularly tracked and reported indicator on the same level as military positions or budget deficits.

Integrating the humanitarian dimension into strategic discussions on Ukraine is not a sentimental exercise — it is an operational necessity. A Ukraine whose civilian population is psychologically broken, physically weakened, and economically impoverished will be unable to sustain the defense and reconstruction effort that its partners expect of it. Investing in the people is investing in the victory.

Lessons from past conflicts — what civilian resilience changes

Sarajevo and civilian resistance as a precedent

The Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996) offers a painful but instructive historical precedent. A besieged city, under the bombs, with a civilian population that organized concerts, kept libraries open, published newspapers — by refusing to let the war entirely dictate the terms of existence. Sarajevo's civilian resilience is today cited as one of the factors that allowed Bosnian society to hold on until the Dayton Agreement. Ukraine is doing something similar — on an infinitely larger scale and with incomparably greater resources.

But the Sarajevo precedent also teaches a bitter lesson: when the international community is slow to respond, the human cost explodes. The Siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,425 days — the longest siege of a capital in the history of modern warfare — in part because international hesitation allowed the aggressor to continue. Ukraine is not Sarajevo — it has more support, more weapons, more allies. But the logic of waiting and playing for time still applies, and its human cost accumulates every day.

Resilience as strategy and as value

Ukrainian resilience — this capacity to hold on, to rebuild, to maintain functional social and economic structures under extraordinary military pressure — is a strategic resource that military planners and economists do not always know how to model. It has a value that exceeds rational calculations and that, historically, has often been the deciding factor in prolonged conflicts where the belligerents were unequal in raw military power.

David Ben-Gurion, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle — all understood that the resilience of a civilian population is the foundation on which a country's capacity for resistance rests. Zelensky understands this too — he who chose to stay in Kyiv when evacuation was offered to him in February 2022. That choice had an inestimable symbolic and strategic value. Resilience is cultivated — and it deserves to be nourished, supported, and funded.

The voice of the returnees — what they tell us

Testimonies that document the unacceptable

The World Vision report includes testimonies from returnees gathered in active zones. These voices deserve to be heard, not as instruments of pity, but as human documents of a reality that statistics do not fully convey. A 74-year-old grandmother returning to a windowless house because she refuses to die in an unknown shelter. A father returning so his children who stayed behind can sit their school exams in their own city. A farmer returning because his land needs to be planted, war or no war.

These testimonies are universal in their humanity and impossible in their context. They describe a dignity that resists conditions that should not exist. And they inevitably raise the question of what we — distant spectators in our secure capitals — do with our own capacity to act. Ukraine does not need our compassion. It needs our action — concrete, funded, and proportional to the urgency.

What "holding" means — between resistance and abandonment

In the international discourse on Ukraine, the word "holding" returns like a mantra of provisional victory — "Ukraine is holding," "the front is holding," "the coalition is holding." But for the 1.55 million people who returned to active conflict zones, "holding" has a far more concrete and far heavier meaning: holding is surviving until tomorrow, is not losing another child, is finding enough wood to heat the destroyed house, is staying sane when everything calls for breakdown.

This reality deserves to be at the center of our discussions on Ukraine — not on the periphery, as a humanitarian news item between two strategic analyses. Because if Ukraine "holds," it is above all thanks to these ordinary people who chose to stay or return, and who bear on their shoulders a share of the weight that policymakers count in budget columns. Their holding deserves more than our praise. It deserves our commitments.

What 2026 changes — the year civilian reality must enter the debate

A turning point in international awareness

The World Vision report of June 2026 arrives at a pivotal moment in the international management of the Ukrainian crisis. Discussions about a possible ceasefire are resuming — hypothetically, tentatively, with all the reservations that this prospect imposes on those who know the Russian precedents. In this context, the situation of civilians in active zones should be an absolute priority in any negotiation: any discussion about a pause in fighting must include guarantees for the security of civilian populations who have nowhere to go.

The year 2026 also sees an evolution in media coverage of the war. After four years, "war fatigue" is hitting newsrooms as much as populations. Articles on Ukraine are fewer, less developed, less prominently featured. The 1.55 million returnees to active zones are a story that would have made magazine covers in 2022. In 2026, it appears in press releases that journalists will not read. This journalistic fatigue is itself a security problem — it allows the world to look elsewhere while the tragedy continues.

Pressure for a peace deal — and its risks for civilians

Growing pressure for a negotiated peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow carries specific risks for civilian populations that geopolitical analysis tends to minimize. A ceasefire line drawn on a map will leave populations on both sides of that line in precarious situations — Ukrainians under Russian administration in occupied territories, communities divided by a de facto border. The experience of the Green Line in Cyprus or the Minsk agreements shows that ceasefire lines create their own long-term humanitarian tragedies.

The voice of Ukrainian civilians — including the 1.55 million who chose to return under the bombs — must be explicitly included in any negotiation process. Their preferences, needs, and rights cannot be treated as secondary variables in a geopolitical calculation between great powers. A peace that does not account for those it is supposed to protect is not a peace — it is capitulation dressed up as an agreement.

Conclusion: 1.55 million reasons to act now

What these figures tell us about our priorities

One million five hundred and fifty thousand people. Returned home. In active war zones. With children who have heard gunfire. With food prices up 90%. With a humanitarian plan funded at 42.7%. These figures are not an abstraction. They are a collective indictment addressed to an international community that says it supports Ukraine but does not fund the basic needs of the people living under the bombs. The gap between the rhetoric of support and the reality of humanitarian funding is a form of lie by omission.

This is not a question of powerlessness. The resources exist. The mechanisms exist. The organizations doing this work exist. What is missing is a political decision to align humanitarian financial commitments with the rhetorical commitments of total support for Ukraine. That decision can be made. It must be made. And the 1.55 million returnees in active zones should not have to wait for it to be made.

The call to action — concrete and urgent

What I am asking, as a columnist watching this situation with growing horror: at least double humanitarian funding for Ukraine. Simplify release mechanisms. Integrate the civilian dimension into all strategic briefings on Ukraine. Fund mental health programs to the level of documented needs. Build veterans' reintegration structures before demobilization creates a social crisis. Treat the 1.55 million returnees to active zones not as a sad statistic, but as a moral and political obligation.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Sources and limitations

This editorial draws primarily on the World Vision report published in June 2026: "1.5M Returning Ukrainians Home to Active Warzone: Millions of Children at Risk," as well as associated data from the IOM, UNHCR, and the United Nations on population displacement in Ukraine. Data on food prices, humanitarian funding rates, and child trauma statistics come directly from this report. Historical comparisons and political analyses are my editorial interpretations of this data, not official positions of the organizations cited.

I do not have direct access to ground-level data from World Vision teams in Ukraine, nor to confidential analyses from donor governments on their humanitarian funding strategies. The figures I use are those published in publicly accessible sources. Where I propose interpretations, I have clearly marked them as such.

Stated biases

I support without reservation the Ukrainian resistance and consider humanitarian aid to Ukrainian civilians a moral and strategic obligation of the West. I am critical of what I perceive as the chronic underestimation of the humanitarian dimension in strategic discussions on Ukraine. I believe Zelensky is an exceptional leader who deserves support commensurate with his people's sacrifice. These positions are editorial judgments distinct from the facts I cite.

Sources

Primary sources

World Vision — 1.5M Returning Ukrainians Home to Active Warzone: Millions of Children at Risk — June 2026

UNHCR Ukraine — Internal displacement and returns data — 2026

IOM / DTM — Displacement tracking in Ukraine — 2026

Secondary sources

OCHA Ukraine — Humanitarian plan and funding rates — 2026

Kyiv Independent — Ukrainians returning to frontline areas — 2026

UNICEF Ukraine — Education under attack in Ukraine — 2025-2026

Euromaidan Press — Ukraine's civilian humanitarian crisis in 2026 — June 2026