Refugees "visiting home"

[Notanotherkendoll]

I'm not sure how I feel after this conversation with a friend so would like to hear other opinions.
My friend took in a Ukrainian refugee back in 2022, she was a 18/19 year old teenager. She didn't stay for long before getting employment/started studying and was able to move out but they have remained in touch and my friend sort of views herself as the girls "uk mum".
Anyway friend is once again beside herself as she has gone back to Kyiv for a few days. This isn't the city she is from but sadly the city she was from was under siege for sometime and is now mostly destroyed. She is going to visit her family who all moved to Kyiv, as the only girl her family pushed her to flee when the war started but her mum stayed put.

This has me thinking, surely if it is safe enough for her to return home to visit, it's safe enough for her to move back? I thought the whole point of being a refugee was that your own country wasn't safe, if you are going back to visit how can that be the case?

AIBU to think it's incompatible with the very nature of being a refugee to be able to visit home?

Every country has bots, including Ukraine.

This is how the world works nowadays.

Personally I like Oleksandr Usyk’s charity….

There'd be no reason for a pro Ukrainian bot to target a site like MN, however. And if they did, it's not going to look like this thread.

OP I'm going to tell you about my nephew and his girlfriend.

My nephews girlfriend is Ukrainian, she is from a town in the north near the board that was sieged pretty much immediately, her family fled in the middle of the night 3 young adult children and both parents with just what they could fit in the car.
Her dad and brothers couldn't leave, both her brothers signed up to join the fight immediately, her mum refused to leave her dad and her elderly parents who wouldn't leave either.
Her aunt and cousins travelled with her to Poland and she continued to the UK with a friend. I should say she was 19 when this was happening. They stayed with a sponsor and her friend decided to return to Ukraine after 6 months, she found the homesickness to hard to handle and her family had settled in the west. This girl stayed, worked and went to university.
She and my nephew have been together for about 18 months. She has been back a few times without him in that time.
Earlier this year her brother who had been on the frontline passed away, he was only 26. My nephew insisted on going with her for the funeral. They spent 3 days and 2 nights with her family who settled in Kyiv. He told me there were air raid sirens, a missile attack not all that far away, the electricity and water kept cutting out and in general he was terrified. It wasn't safe but her family were just getting on with it. It wasn't safe, he was scared for his life. But her family had just lost her brother and she wanted to be there for them.
She felt awful leaving but her parents insisted she had to go and make something of her life and they wouldn't lose a child if they didn't have to.

It's awful. It's not safe, they go back as this is their family and their home. She couldn't possibly stay there. Not only would she be a drain on limited resources but she wouldn't be safe at all.

I agree, you are right

i didnt really mean what i said

i am just so angry and sick of reading horrible stories and photos of rape and murder and child abuse in Ukraine, the world, and right here in the uk and no/hardly any justice I snapped and made an emotional comment.

My dd has a friend who fled Ukraine with her mother in the first few weeks of the war. Divorced parents. Luckily, they already had family in the UK.

They returned very briefly earlier this year. To attend her father’s funeral. And to visit her devastated grandparents. Was it entirely safe? Probably not. Was it entirely understandable? Absolutely.

Tbh I admire their restraint a lot - I can’t guarantee that I would be so restrained in the position of Ukrainian defenders who take invaders captive.

And there must be so many stories like this - such huge loss and terror and trauma. I really think people should reflect on what they'd do in the situation the Ukrainians find themselves in - through no fault of their own.

This

This

I think a tiny tiny proportion of asylum seekers are persecuted and in fear of their lives. They just want better lives. As soon as they get leave to remain and a travel document many want to go home and visit the families they left behind and want to support.

I don’t blame them at all. It’s just human. I don’t think many are actually refugees as was originally understood under the legislation. They are just doing what they can to move for opportunity and that means claiming asylum and going through the motions.

Obviously, if you question ukrainians, you must be a bot 🙄
"Russian SPEAKING" - exactly, and you are not the only one having then in wherever you work

You 'think'? Why not do some research and inform yourself?
For example
The highest number of asylum seekers in the UK come from Afghanistan (the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) where there are ongoing and often horrific human rights abuses, for example gender-based violence and oppression and the torture and sexual abuse of detainees and a history of invasion by and conflict with more powerful countries such as Britain and the USSR.
There is extremely widespread hunger exacerbated by western financial and aid blockades and drought means it has been described as undergoing 'one of the world's worst humanitarian crises'. See the report here https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/afghanistan-0

As well as living in real fear of persecution by the Taliban, two-thirds of the population need aid to survive. That means basic basic food. So maybe revise your 'tiny tiny proportion' speculation which is clearly not based on any real knowledge.

Are you sure you are not ukrainian/ukrainina wife? re 'Russian SPEAKING' - so much of 'wider knowledge of the world' as pp said

ok lmao whatever you say tovarisch vlad

I know quite few who regularly visit back, even the 75 year olds.
I had one which just went back completely. These are very interesting times and sometimes people would prefer to die even so , but be home

There’s many eastern euros in the uk. A little something they didn’t teach you in putin university

My Lithuanian/latvian Russian speaking co worker used that word, said she lives in a home on chicken legs in English and explained what that meant when I asked what she meant.

but you enjoy those +100 rubles, you’ve earned them today nikolai. Hope you’re able to afford that vodka today

Only russians ukrainians say tovarisch, so you must be ukrainina bot, For a 'colleague' of russain speaking person, you've herd quite a lot of russian words, interesting, isn't it?
As I said, a lot of ukraininan wives here passionately 'fighting russians' from the comfort of their home

Yes yabu.

I think firstly you underestimate what it actually involves to leave everything you know and care about behind to start a completely new life elsewhere, to go through the asylum process which is invasive, hostile and lengthy and to eventually start to build friendships and a network and create a life for yourself.

Obviously things in any country can settle/ get better/ more peaceful/ different groups in power. Do you seriously think that means that people claiming asylum from there should once again forego a life they've just spent years building to move back and start from scratch there again? There's a huge difference between living somewhere and visiting briefly.

You are so mad you got caught, typing on a woman’s gossip forum all day like a female instead of being a protector and provider, a real man

these wives are doing more fighting than you ever wcould

id rather passionately fight online as woman than type for pennies like you, Ivan

youd learn soon when they draft you, don’t worry, good luck

Risking danger in order to make a short visit to your family is different from living there. Why do you resent a young girl looking to complete her education and start a career in readiness to return to her family when the situation allows? I'm gobsmacked at your thought process.

I think most people would think that anyone who leaves their home/country due to WAR meets the definition of Refugee.

@AgileGreenSeal "reported"?

Fucking hell.

@Newgreendress You're just like a poor waif in his underwear