The number of border crossings in Ukraine between December 30 and January 5 decreased by 18.4% compared to the previous week, to 475,000, and the number of vehicles let through decreased by 18.2%, to 90,000, according to the State Border Guard Service’s Facebook post.
According to the data, while the flow of people entering Ukraine had been exceeding the flow of people leaving by 22-24 thousand every week for two weeks, the situation reversed on New Year’s Eve: the number of people crossing the border decreased from 302 thousand to 224 thousand, while the number of people entering the country decreased from 280 thousand to 250 thousand.
The number of cleared vehicles with humanitarian cargo decreased to 340 from 576 a week earlier.
Compared to the situation a year ago, the inflow to Ukraine has shifted a week ahead, which may be due to the postponement of Christmas celebrations.
Statistics from the Polish Border Guard Service during the New Year’s week also show a change in dynamics after two weeks of net inflows to Ukraine: during the New Year’s week, 23.5 thousand more people leaving Ukraine than entering were recorded, with a decrease in total passenger traffic by 18.3% to 311.5 thousand. A year ago, net inflows to Ukraine across the Polish border were recorded until January 6 inclusive.
In total, from the beginning of the war to January 5, 2024, 18.27 million people arrived in Poland from Ukraine, while 16.48 million people traveled in the opposite direction.
As reported, since May 10, 2022, the outflow of refugees from Ukraine has been replaced by an influx, which lasted until September 23, 2022 and amounted to 409 thousand people.
However, since the end of September, possibly under the influence of news about mobilization in Russia and “pseudo-referendums” in the occupied territories, and then massive shelling of energy infrastructure, the number of people leaving has been exceeding the number of people entering. It temporarily stopped in the second half of December and early January during the holidays, but then resumed again and reached a total of 223 thousand people from the end of September to the anniversary of the full-scale war.
Since then, the number of border crossings to enter Ukraine has exceeded the number of crossings to leave by 64 thousand people.
As Deputy Economy Minister Serhiy Sobolev noted in early March this year, the return of every 100,000 Ukrainians home results in a 0.5% increase in GDP.
According to the UNHCR, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe was estimated at 5.937 million as of January 3, and 6.340 million worldwide, which is only 1-2 thousand more than a week earlier.
In Ukraine itself, according to the UN, as of November 6, there were 3.674 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), compared to the previous estimate of 5.088 million. “This (significant reduction) is not due to a significant return of IDPs, but rather, first of all, to a change in the methodology for calculating the number of IDPs. The new baseline population figure used to extrapolate IDP estimates now takes into account the absence of some 6.2 million refugees from Ukraine who are no longer in the country,” UNHCR explains.
