As the war in Ukraine continues, young men who fled the country are still struggling to adjust to life abroad, describing feelings of guilt, loss and disconnection.
Oleksii Novikov, 22, fears he may not have survived if he were still in Ukraine.
“If I had stayed, at this point I’d probably be spending part of my life sitting in a basement,” Novikov said. “Maybe I wouldn’t even be alive.”
He came to Canada shortly before his home city of Kherson was occupied. The city is located close to the Russian war front and was the first to be occupied by the Russian army in March of 2022. The after-effects of Russian attacks have left little of his home, he said.
Based on accounts from friends who stayed behind, Kherson was being hit with “maybe 150–200 missiles a day.”
Leaving Ukraine was not easy, Novikov said. With social media bans and restricted internet access, staying in touch with friends back home is difficult.
When he does manage to connect, the stories he hears are often painful.
Russian soldiers stationed in occupied Ukrainian cities still conduct random phone searches on residents, which have led to several people disappearing. At one point, Novikov helped search for a missing friend, who was later found safe after being held captive for a month.
Adjusting to life in Canada was equally difficult, and Novikov has struggled to find a sense of home.
He described experiencing depression and suicidal thoughts during his first few months, explaining that, unlike others who can return home for the holidays, “I basically have no place to go back to now because there is no home.”
Viktor Sholeninov, 26, struggled with feelings of guilt and responsibility toward his homeland, admitting he once considered going back to volunteer.
“At the start of the war, everybody had those patriotic feelings,” he stated. “I was thinking, why am I here? Maybe I have to go back, maybe I have to volunteer.”
But after watching family members join the army, his perspective shifted. “The war is not romantic. It’s very scary. The chances you’ll be hurt or die are very high.”
Aleksius Fediukov, 20, fled Kharkiv with his family in the early days of the invasion. After a week-long journey across Ukraine, they settled in Austria, where his parents began rebuilding their lives.
Fediukov said the move was difficult, describing Austria as feeling more like exile than home. “The place where I’m at makes me very depressed,” he said on a call via Telegram. “Home would be Ukraine, rather than here. It’s a homesickness for a place and time that no longer exists.”
As of February 2025, nearly seven million Ukrainians remain displaced worldwide, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
As Sholeninov stated, “I’ve been in Canada eight years, but I can’t call myself Canadian. I don’t feel fully Ukrainian anymore either. I’m kind of in between.”
*Photo by: Aleksius Fediukov, Creative Commons License