Passenger traffic across the Ukrainian border in the fifth week of spring, from March 29 to April 4, with the end of school holidays, increased by 11.4% – from 237 thousand to 264 thousand, according to the State Border Guard Service’s Facebook page.
According to the data, the flow of people leaving the country decreased by 11.8% – from 254 thousand to 237 thousand.
Thus, the net inflow to Ukraine for this week amounted to 40 thousand and completely covered the net outflow for the previous two weeks, which amounted to 33 thousand.
The number of vehicles that crossed the checkpoints this week decreased from 124 thousand to 122 thousand, while the flow of vehicles with humanitarian cargo increased from 546 to 625.
According to the State Border Guard Service, as of 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, there were no queues at all checkpoints on Ukraine’s western border.
The total number of people crossing the border this week in 2025 is slightly higher than last year’s: 232 thousand people left and 252 thousand entered Ukraine in the same seven days, with a traffic flow of 117 thousand. Last year, in the fifth week of spring, passenger traffic fell by 10.0%, and the following week it fell by another 2.5%.
As reported, on May 10, 2022, the outflow of refugees from Ukraine, which began with the outbreak of war, was replaced by an influx that 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. In total, from the end of September 2022 to the first anniversary of the full-scale war, it reached 223 thousand people.
In the second year of the full-scale war, the number of border crossings to leave Ukraine, according to the State Border Guard Service, exceeded the number of crossings to enter by 25 thousand, while in the third year – by 187 thousand, and since the beginning of the fourth year – by another 19 thousand.
As Deputy Economy Minister 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 January inflation report, the National Bank estimated the outflow from Ukraine in 2024 at 0.5 million (0.315 million according to the State Border Guard Service). In absolute terms, the number of migrants staying abroad will increase to 6.8 million in 2024. The NBU also maintained its outflow forecast for 2025 at 0.2 million.
According to updated data from the UNHCR, the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe as of March 20, 2025, was estimated at 6.373 million, and 6.933 million worldwide, which is 26 thousand more than as of February 19.
In Ukraine itself, according to the latest UN data, 3.665 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), including approximately 160 thousand people, were displaced from the frontline areas in the east and south between May and October 2024 due to the intensification of hostilities.
