Victoria Syumar: Creating divisive formats is the worst thing we can do for our own future.

During a roundtable discussion on “Election Campaigns Abroad: International Practices and Recommendations for Ukraine,” Member of Parliament Victoria Syumar of the European Solidarity faction described alarming trends in the intentions of people who left the country during the full-scale invasion.

Specifically, Syumar cited the results of a sociological survey conducted in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. “How is the country currently dealing with Ukrainians forced to leave due to the war, and how does it plan to bring them back? Do they plan to return to Ukraine? This was the main question we wanted to know the answer to, and what is key to their return,” Syumar explains.

“At that point, the winter of 2023-2024 was more or less normal, but 34% of Ukrainians cited problems with critical infrastructure as a barrier to their return. Security was also cited by 34%. This means that the situation with critical infrastructure was especially critical after the most difficult winter. Now this challenge is growing rapidly and could be key to us losing a large portion of our people again,” warns Syumar.

“Then there was the housing issue. People have nowhere to return to, which accounts for 26%, the end of a full-scale invasion accounts for another 26%, and the ability to find work is 16%. If we look at it in millions, that’s 3-4 million people who want to stay where they left,” the deputy states.

She also noted that a third of Ukrainians abroad were already disinterested in events in Ukraine at that point, while 13% received information from Ukrainian sources. “Another 29% received information from Ukrainians abroad. And 14% from sources abroad alone. In other words, Ukraine failed to establish effective information outreach to Ukrainians abroad,” Syumar stated.

According to her, the biggest challenge is government agencies’ choice of the Russian messaging app Telegram for working with Ukrainians abroad: “We choose Telegram for working with Ukrainians, thereby forcing them to use a Russian messaging app with a complete lack of regulation. And Ukrainian embassies are doing this, too. In my opinion, this is a strategic mistake.”

“It’s a great shame that the Ministry of Unity died before it was born. This is a vital job that someone needs to take on. Because the Ukrainian community is certainly one of the largest communities in the world today, forced to live abroad. And how we approach these people, how we work with them, will determine not just who they vote for, but what Ukraine will be like in the future,” says Syumar.

She also criticized the politicization of the diplomatic service, which hinders political parties’ effective engagement with Ukrainians abroad. “My colleagues have repeatedly encountered situations where, upon arriving in any country, they sought to meet with representatives of Ukrainian organizations. These people, of course, immediately mentioned the embassy. The embassy did everything to ensure they were denied meeting rooms, even if it wasn’t the embassy’s office, but simply the offices of some community the embassy supported. This politicization is absolutely abnormal and hinders effective engagement with Ukrainians. Because, in fact, this is what people abroad really need—to talk. They often say, ‘When will you arrive? When will you explain the prospects for ending the war?’ They desperately want to hear this information firsthand. And the embassy should be interested in having representatives of various parliamentary and non-parliamentary political parties engage with Ukrainians abroad. There’s no such interest; on the contrary, there are direct obstacles,” the MP noted.

“You know how many obstacles we’ve faced preventing us from attending any international events. Only now has this problem begun to be addressed after the European Parliament’s resolution, which is a great shame for the country. Because the European Parliament is pointing out fundamental problems with the rights of the opposition and in general,” Victoria Syumar recalled.

“Not only are we mismanaging our outreach to Ukrainians abroad, but we’re also mismanaging this issue domestically. Because the accusations that Ukrainians abroad should be deprived of a voice, which are occasionally heard in the country, undermine Ukraine’s future as a European, democratic, and even Ukrainian country. This rhetoric must be stopped. The state’s task is to bring Ukrainians back to Ukraine as much as possible, not to create conditions where they say, ‘Yes, no one is waiting for us there.’ In fact, they are. And creating divisive formats is the worst thing we can do for our own future,” concluded Victoria Syumar.