Imagine being halfway through reading this sentence when you hear a blast outside, and a news alert flashes on your phone. Moments later, you’re trying to explain to a nine- and a five-year-old that the frightening noises they hear mean that they must pack their bags and leave behind everything and everyone they have ever known.
This is what happened to Natalia, a young mother from Ukraine, four years ago. In February 2022, she was forced to make unimaginably difficult decisions to keep her children safe. Overnight, countless people in Ukraine lost the world they knew.
More than 200,000 Ukrainians have since found safety in the UK. But the families who arrived still live with uncertainty: refreshing phones for updates from loved ones, dreading the moment familiar streets appear in ruins on the news, feeling distanced from family and friends and struggling to plan for a future that remains unclear.
This shapes how people sleep, cope and move through the day in a country that feels removed from their native land; people who can never be fully separated from the realities of life back home.
Many Ukrainians in the UK cannot truly rebuild their lives until they feel secure, a notion that still feels fragile. They are trying to start over in a new country, learning a new language and navigating housing, work and healthcare. Their security is measured out in blocks of time – 18 months for the government’s current Ukraine Permission Extension (UPE) scheme, two years for the subsequent extension.
Short‑term visas affect every part of life: how long children can stay in school, whether someone can complete medical treatment, if a landlord will agree to a tenancy, whether an employer will take a chance on a new hire. When the clock is always counting down to the next visa extension, planning for the future becomes almost impossible.
Ukrainians want to work – and many already are. Three quarters of those surveyed for Red Cross research are in employment, including full-time roles. But short-term visas limit opportunities.
Employers hesitate to hire or invest in someone who’s right to remain may expire soon. Highly skilled people – from teachers and engineers to healthcare workers – are too often working in roles they are overqualified for. This mismatch between skills and jobs is both a personal setback and a missed opportunity for businesses and the UK economy to benefit from a diverse set of skills.
The effects of this instability go beyond the Ukrainian community in the UK. Councils, host families and employers have invested deeply in helping people settle. Every time families end up moving house, jobs or schools due to factors related to short-term visas, that investment is lost along with the workers, volunteers and neighbours who have become part of that community.
There is so much to celebrate about the Ukraine visa schemes and the way people came together to offer support. It shows the potential for other forms of sponsorship and safe routes for refugees. However, the pitfalls should also alert us to issues with the government’s plans to move all refugees to “core protection” status, with people’s cases – and their safety – reviewed every two and a half years. People need stability, not recurring uncertainty about their future.
It can, and should be better. To build on the Ukraine response and give people the security they need, the government should provide longer-term visa options and clear guidance for people on Ukraine visa schemes, better English language provision on arrival and fast-track recognition of qualifications in key industries would also support integration into communities.
This might not solve everything for Ukrainians in the UK, but it will help soothe feelings of uncertainty and allow people to better plan for their futures. The lessons are bigger than one scheme. These principles should guide how we support all displaced people, so that everyone has the chance to rebuild, contribute and belong.
Natalia’s story
I am a Ukrainian refugee. Leaving my home country was horrific with a journey so traumatic for my children – who were five and nine-years-old at the time – that I don’t know what lasting impact it had on them. Weeks later they drew pictures of that journey with what looked like huge black birds in the sky, but were in fact the missiles that had been flying above our car. From that moment, my children had to grow up fast.
But we are lucky. We escaped, and for the past three and a half years we have been living in the UK. Against the odds we have made a life for ourselves here. I found work before we arrived in the country, I pay my taxes and we rent our own flat. My children will never forget the horrors they witnessed as they were leaving Ukraine, but with the help of teachers, friends and lovely neighbours here in England, they have slowly managed to settle into their new lives, and they love it here.
I recently realised that my elder daughter has spent more years at school in the UK than she did in Ukraine and that my younger daughter has never even been to a Ukrainian school. The girls both speak English now – even to each other at home – so much so that I have had to swap their English language lessons for Ukrainian lessons. This is the life they know and love.
Under new visa plans, we might be forced to go back to Ukraine when it is deemed safe – but who decides that? Many Ukrainians doubt it will ever be safe to return. If we have to leave the UK, the children’s lives as they know it would disappear yet again. No child should experience what they have. If they have to leave their whole lives behind once more, then I would feel like I failed them.
I recently heard a quote that resonated with me: “Home is not just walls. It is a place where your family is comfortable, where your soul is at peace, where you simply want to be.” We have found that here. On a recent flight back to the UK, my younger settled into her seat and said, “How wonderful it is to return home.” I want to share that peace, but I can’t while the clock ticks on our visas.
We need a route to permanent settlement, because you cannot build a stable future on temporary ground. The UK has given us a safe harbour, but what we need now is an anchor.
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