By Tamar Jacoby
The startling news slipped by almost unnoticed in the last minutes of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s year-end press conference in December. Asked about the 6.2 million Ukrainians—nearly 15% of the population—who have fled the country over the past two years, Zelensky dashed off a list of incentives to encourage their return: cash payments, subsidized mortgages, startup business loans. But he devoted most of his answer to a very different idea: multiple citizenship. The goal would be to allow Ukrainians who live and work elsewhere to continue visiting, investing and otherwise contributing to the nation’s life.
It’s not a new concept, but hearing it from Zelensky was surprising. Was he acknowledging that many Ukrainian refugees may never return? The stakes are high: If the refugees don’t come back, demographic projections suggest that the country’s population, already shrinking before the war, could contract by 25% in decades ahead. Surveys suggest that the people who left Ukraine are better educated than the population at large, with two-thirds having completed higher education, so their absence would be a devastating economic blow for a country struggling to rebuild.
Zelensky expects European nations to encourage Ukrainians to return, including by tapering benefits for refugees except those in what he called “dire” circumstances. Czechia, Ireland and Switzerland are already considering travel subsidies to help Ukrainians go home when the fighting stops. Still, no one is talking about forcing them to return.
