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?

life is unpredictable- no one knew how far the Russians would get on day one did they? We still don’t. The Ukrainians may get bombed out of their house tomorrow or it may never happen. Those that fled have papers and somewhere to stay here. It may be appear to be safe to visit home but equally a bomb may land on them when they get there. It’s fraught with uncertainty and danger. If I could nip and see my family who may or may not get attacked at any minute I would risk it - put your feet in their shoes for a minute and really think about this OP

OP said this girl is a studying & uni age. So her visa might actually be a student visa. If so she can leave the country without invalidating it. Generally you start out on a refugee visa and then upgrade to other visas or get on the path to naturalise the longer you stay.

THIS! Catch yourself on @Notanotherkendoll

Poor lass! Being badmouthed purely for having the temerity to want to see her family.

Stop the world I want to get off!

Haven't read the full thread, but Ukrainians here on the Ukrainian visa scheme are not refugees. It's a specific visa category which was basically an 'up yours' to Russia. They can come and go as they please. We haven't yet decided what we are doing with the individuals who used it, but there was certainly no intention for them to lose their status if they went home for a visit.

An asylum seeker is making a specific claim that they are in personal danger in their country, and obviously it should void their claim if they are then travelling back to that country. Although I am sure it happens because our records are not good enough to track it.

(Edited for spelling)

Do you understand? Do you have to start your argument in such a patronising manner.

Maybe you could learn better ways to debate.

The men in the Russian army are Russian men.

If they came here as immigrants or refugees it would be unacceptable to stereotype them as rapists.

I am not arguing with documented reports of rape but I am noting how the language around rape changes according to the status of the male.

Thank you everyone. I probably was being closed minded and over sceptical.
I do have the utmost sympathy for this girl and her family, she is from Chernihiv which I believe was one of the first cities to be sieged by Russia, her family still lived there while that happened, other than she and her brother who had already been living in Kyiv. She has told my friend about how awful that was for her family and friends and how her childhood home no longer exists. I do feel awful that she has had to deal with all of that.

I've met the girl a few times and I've found her to be remarkably lovely, very brave and resilient.

She is now dating a British boy and I'm sure if that works out will chose to stay here permanently I guess I was just feel come confusion which people have cleared up for me here - thank you.

Yes, totally incompatible with being a refugee. We've had threads on this with Ukraine before. Extremely common. As is people flying home for the dentist etc.

We're all so stupid we actually know nothing about the country and think the whole place is under siege but that's not the case.

Newsflash: "Ukrainians" are a diverse bunch of people. Some are well off, others are poor. Some have family who volunteered to fight on day one, others are doing all they can to avoid being drafted. Some have elderly relatives who may not be here next year even if the war stops.

Imagine that the UK was under constant threat of air raid attack and 20% of the women and children decided to get away to Spain, which took them in. But the air raids are spaced out a bit and sometimes no bombs hit London for a month. Among all those women and children, are there really none who would want to go back and hug their family, even with a degree of risk? Look around at your own family and neighbours. You can probably guess (maybe not accurately, but let's hope we don't have to find out) who would go, who would stay, who would go but come back to see their Nan, who would fight, who would run, and who would go and do some target spotting for Putin because "I don't agree with everything he does, obviously, but he's very solid on the woke nonsense". 🙄

They don’t have Refugee status. They’re either on ‘Homes for Ukraine’ visas, or a family visa. HfU are much more common. On a HfU visa they can study, work, and have free rights to travel just as we do. Going back to Ukraine does not result in their visas being revoked as it would for an asylum seeker. I doubt this girl would be on a student visa. If she was she’d have to pay her uni tuition. On a HfU visa she would get a student loan, just like us.

What did you think constituted objectionable stereotyping?

She's not a refugee. Cancel the refugee cheque. The whole premise of this thread is wrong.

Some people from Ukraine have taken the opportunity to live and work in the UK. Not blaming at all if that is what they want and what our rules allow. Some needed that protection as they were from areas Russia has taken over, others did not in my view need it. I have people in my teams still in Ukraine (as there are a lot of skilled IT workers there) who have lived and worked successfully there throughout the whole of the war so far. There is danger, especially on the front line, but not everywhere.

Yes. You are absolutely the only person. How very dare they

@Notanotherkendoll 's warped logic is that if people are living in Ukraine, it must be safe.

After all when bombs fall in Ukraine, civilians are killed.

Kyiv - Children's hospital hit as Russian strikes kill dozens in Ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cl4y1pjk2dzo
Lviv - Seven dead in Lviv in fresh wave of strikes on Ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqj35jv3e7o

Therefore, if civilians are killed, people are still living in Ukraine and it must be safe.

In what way has the language changed? Where is anyone saying all Russian men are rapists?

They aren’t. They are always and only talking about what is happening in the war.

We hosted a mother and two children who lived with us for 20 months before moving into their own home locally. Mum is the hardest working person I have ever met and was devastated to leave a good life she had built in Ukraine, arriving here with nothing. She did it to protect her children. They go back to Ukraine a couple of times a year. They go because the children’s father is there and is not allowed to leave. Separation from him breaks the children’s hearts. The whole time they are there we worry about them. They have to cope with only 4 hours of power a day, air raids, missile attacks, drones flying past the windows, food shortages etc. The mum tears herself in half worrying about what the right thing to do is. Keep the children here so they never see their dad and their wider family or risk all their safety to give them time together. There have been times she’s booked tickets and hasn’t been able to go because the safety situation has changed. These things are never straightforward or black and white. We all spend our lives weighing up risks and benefits in the choices we make. I choose to get in a car on a motorway and to accept that risk but I wouldn’t choose to race a motorbike around a racetrack. I am just grateful that this is not a scenario I have to tackle where I need to balance my children’s family relationships, sense of identity and mental health against the risk of getting bombed.

From what I understand some wait til they have a UK passport.

Plus they do not fly over and back from Uk, they do a stopover. Not sure what ID is used for that.

Ukraine. I am not sure of the exact location. He said it is quite far from where all the action is.

If they remove the " special" Ukrainian visa then she would have no rights to be here at all so should go back in that case

Similar experience to @MockCroc - Ukrainian mum I know has gone back with her kids to see her male relations, including their dad. She says you hear the 'iron dome' equivalent all night deflecting incoming missiles. It's dangerous but she is broken, missing her family desperately. She wants to go back permanently but it is too dangerous. She's a pharmacist but there has been no support to get back into this work in the UK, which is a tragedy imo.

She also gets her dental care done!! It says something that dental care in a war zone is better than in the UK....

Tell me where the OP said she liked kicking puppies for fun?

Pretending you believe that is your excuse for insulting her and others.

Believe it or not people are allowed to disagree with you and you have no right to insult them just because you are unable counter an argument without belittling them.

This young girl obviously misses her family so much to risk going back to a war zone. She knows she is at risk there but goes because she misses her family so much.

I don’t literally think she kicks puppies for fun.

I think wanting to deny a young girl in a terrible situation sanctuary from war is as bad as kicking puppies for fun.

Well they don't fly into a war torn country.

The misinformation & lack of understanding & compassion on this thread is breathtaking.