publication

Most Ukrainians come from intensely contested areas

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Published: 01.09.2025, 05:45

Anyone from western Ukraine should no longer receive protection status S. This was decided by Parliament. But this only affects a good quarter of all refugees.

In brief:

• Parliament has decided that Ukrainians from the west of the country should no longer receive protection status S.
• The western Ukrainian regions have so far been considered relatively safe, the East as intensely contested and partially annexed to Russia.
• However, 73 percent of Ukrainians in Switzerland come from particularly contested regions. In addition, the others are also not safe, say local people.

Parliament wants to restrict protection status S. Anyone traveling to Switzerland from Ukraine in the future should only receive the status created for war situations if they come from a region that is occupied by Russia or affected by intensive hostilities.

The SVP's motion has not yet been implemented; the Federal Council will decide on the structure of the new provision in autumn. Norway could serve as an example. In 2024, the country divided Ukraine into safe and uncertain areas: 11 regions, primarily in the east, are considered unsafe; 14 regions in the west are considered relatively safe. Norway has adjusted the reception regulations for Ukrainian refugees accordingly.

However, if Switzerland restricts access to protection status along the lines of Norway, this has no major effect. This is because most Ukrainians fleeing to Switzerland come from areas of uncertainty. This is shown by new figures from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), which are available to this editorial team.

Only 27 percent of Ukrainians come from regions that are considered safe internationally. 73 percent come from Russian-annexed or intensely contested areas. The SEM has subsequently evaluated the origin of the refugees in the first months of the war, and figures are now available that provide an almost complete picture. For 7900 of the total of just under 70,000 people, the exact origin in Ukraine could not be determined.

Retrospective is judged to be controversial

The restriction of protection status S should only apply to new arrivals, not to those who are already in Switzerland, as the SVP motioneer had demanded. There is also a demand for retroactivity from individual cantons: The responsible government councils in Zurich, Bern and Lucerne also want to apply the new regulation to Ukrainians who are already in Switzerland. This was reported by the “NZZ am Sonntag”.

Others are speaking out against or even against a restriction of protection status S. For example, the Aargau SVP Governing Council Jean-Pierre Gallati says that retroactive action would overburden cantonal and nationwide asylum structures. The protection status was created to prevent this. Both Basels are fundamentally opposed to a restriction, as they wrote in the federal consultation. It is not possible to define safe regions in Ukraine. Russian air strikes have recently targeted increasingly populated areas in the west of the country.

The definition of safe Ukrainian regions is controversial. Bernese Bänz Margot, who founded the organization Human Front Aid and runs an emergency aid center with it in Odessa, says: “Nowhere in Ukraine is safe. Living there is Russian roulette.” In addition, Russian air strikes have intensified throughout the country, including in the West. “In the first months of the war, the farther away from the Russian border, the safer. But that is no longer the case.”

The Russian attack strategy is constantly changing and interfering ever more perfidiously in people's everyday lives, says Margot. Remote villages in the West would be hit by rockets and drones where no one would have expected them. “Recently, the Russians have also been attacking cars. The strategy behind this is clear: mobility should be restricted.”

Daniel Koch, former manager at the Federal Office of Public Health, is on the Patronage Committee of Human Front Aid and frequently in Ukraine himself through his Ukrainian wife. His wife recently had a death in the family, says Koch. The family wanted to order a car to transport the coffin to the cemetery, but no one wanted to take on this chauffeur service. “Because so many cars are currently being hit by drones or rockets, no one made themselves available.” For example, the coffin was transported by horse-drawn carriage.

Areas that were considered relatively safe at the start of the war are no longer considered relatively safe today, says Koch. He always traveled to Ukraine with a good feeling because they knew where they could and could not be. “But for the first time on the trip that is about to take place, I have a queasy feeling.”

What if the areas become Russian?

It is also currently uncertain what will happen to eastern Ukraine. The territories already partly occupied by Russia today are regarded as negotiating chips in the talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The two heads of state want Ukraine to meet Russia's territorial claims.

One who supports this under certain conditions is Thomas Greminger, Director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP). One possible solution is for “temporary control” along the front lines to transfer to the power that effectively controls these areas today. And that is Russia. Such a transfer of territory would then only be temporary, “de facto and not de jure.”

Either way, people from Eastern Ukraine would not be able to return to their homes for decades, says Greminger. According to international organizations, arbitrary persecution and torture are taking place in the territories occupied by Russia. The population is being terrorized. Ukrainian language, education and history are banned from everyday life and punished. “Anyone who returns there from a western country is at high risk of persecution,” says Greminger. “From Russia's point of view, these people fled to the wrong side, namely to the West instead of Russia.” For Ukrainians from the occupied territories, it doesn't matter whether the war situation persists or whether the territories officially become Russian. “They will probably not be able to travel back for the rest of their lives.”