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The war in Ukraine has caused a housing crisis. Here’s how to combat it

With seven million Ukrainians internally displaced, the search for empty buildings to repurpose isn’t enough

By Anastasia Bobrova
The war in Ukraine has caused a housing crisis. Here’s how to combat it
Under privatisation, Ukraine came to have a 90% owner-occupancy rate
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“The apartment is fine. We took some food from the fridge and watered your plants,” my friends texted me a fortnight ago.

For almost two months, I’ve been unable to return to the apartment I rent in Kyiv. Just before the war began, I had left for a vacation that unexpectedly ended in me seeking temporary refuge in a foreign country. Yet my home is somehow undamaged, giving me hope of returning soon and seeing the Ukrainian capital’s iconic chestnut trees in blossom.

While the building I lived in has so far survived the Russian invasion, thousands of others have been devastated. By the beginning of April, almost 7,000 residential buildings were reported to have been destroyed or damaged. The full scale of the destruction is still unknown, as cities like Mariupol are not yet free from occupying Russian forces.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0