Passenger traffic across the Ukrainian border during the week from May 31 to June 6, with the onset of summer, the end of the school year, and the start of the vacation season, increased by 13.2% to 573,000, according to data from the State Border Service on Facebook.
According to the data, the outbound flow jumped from 253,000 to 311,000, while the inbound flow increased from 253,000 to 262,000.
The number of vehicles that passed through checkpoints this week did not increase significantly, from 124,000 to 125,000, and the flow of vehicles carrying humanitarian cargo even decreased slightly, from 524 to 514.
According to the agency, at noon on Sunday, there was only one queue of passenger cars at the Ustyluh checkpoint on the Polish border, with 30 vehicles, while four buses were waiting to cross the border at Shehyni.
At all other checkpoints, there were queues of 15 and 10 vehicles at the Vylok and Luzhanka checkpoints on the border with Hungary and 10 vehicles at the Uzhgorod and Maly Berezny checkpoints on the border with Slovakia.
The total number of people crossing the border this year is higher than last year: during the same seven days last year, 291,000 people left Ukraine and 251,000 entered, and the flow of cars was also lower – 118,000.
Last year, a significant summer increase in passenger traffic began in the first week of June and lasted for five weeks in a row.
As reported, from May 10, 2022, the outflow of refugees from Ukraine, which began with the start of the war, was replaced by an influx that lasted until September 23, 2022, and amounted to 409,000 people. However, since the end of September, possibly influenced by news of mobilization in Russia and “pseudo-referendums” in the occupied territories, followed by massive shelling of energy infrastructure, the number of departures exceeded the number of arrivals. In total, from the end of September 2022 to the first anniversary of the full-scale war, it reached 223,000 people.
During the second year of the full-scale war, the number of border crossings to leave Ukraine, according to the State Border Service, exceeded the number of crossings to enter by 25,000, during the third year by 187,000, and since the beginning of the fourth year by 79,000.
As Deputy Minister of Economy Serhiy Sobolev noted in early March 2023, the return of every 100,000 Ukrainians home results in a 0.5% increase in GDP.
In its April inflation report, the National Bank again estimated the outflow from Ukraine in 2024 at 0.5 million (according to the State Border Service – 0.315 million). In absolute terms, this means an increase in the number of migrants remaining abroad in 2024 to 6.8 million. The NBU also maintained its forecast for outflow in 2025 at 0.2 million.
According to updated UNHCR data, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe as of April 17, 2025, was estimated at 6.358 million, and worldwide at 6.918 million, which is 15,000 fewer than on March 20.
In Ukraine itself, according to the latest UN data at the end of last year, there were 3.669 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).
