FALSE: Deputy confirmed that over 99% of Ukrainians who left occupied territories are returning

Russian sources have reported that over 99% of Ukrainians who left occupied territories are returning because they cannot adapt to life in government-controlled areas. These figures were allegedly cited by journalist Yurii Butusov, referencing MP Maksym Tkachenko.

However, this is false. The figure of 99% was actually mentioned by former Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs, Heorhii Tuka, not Tkachenko. His statement was based on his personal experiences and referred only to the IDPs he had personally interacted with.

There is no post on Yurii Butusov’s social media quoting MP Maksym Tkachenko. However, Tkachenko commented on the return of IDPs in an interview with Ukrinform on November 24. This interview was subsequently cited by Censor.net, where Butusov is the editor-in-chief.

In the interview, Maksym Tkachenko stated: “Approximately 150,000 internally displaced persons have already returned to the temporarily occupied territories. For example, according to available data, 200,000 Mariupol residents fled the city to escape the war brought to our land by Russia. At the same time, every third person among them returned home, to Mariupol, under occupation. By calculations, this is approximately 67–70,000 people.” He noted that people chose to return because they did not receive adequate support from the state: housing, social support, compensation, or jobs.

The day after the interview was published, Tkachenko retracted his statement: “There is no such data. It was my unsubstantiated and emotional assumption,” said the MP. He clarified that there are isolated cases of Ukrainians returning to Russian-occupied regions for various reasons. However, this does not involve hundreds or even tens of thousands of people: “There is no general verified statistic, nor could there theoretically be any.”

In his interview, Tkachenko did not mention 99% of IDPs allegedly returning to occupied territories. It is likely that this figure was a distortion of the words of the former Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs, Heorhii Tuka. On November 24, Tuka commented on the departure of Ukrainians to non-government-controlled areas during an interview with Espreso TV: “I have been observing the process of refugees returning to temporarily occupied territories since 2015 when I headed the Luhansk military administration and later worked in the ministry. I have spoken with people many times, and I do not condemn them in the slightest. I do not know a single person who returned to the occupied territories of their own free will. 99% of people return because they could not establish a normal life in government-controlled areas of Ukraine,” Tuka said.

Later, the Espreso editorial team corrected their headline from “Almost 99% of refugees return to occupied territories because they could not establish a normal life in Ukraine-controlled areas, says former Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories Tuka” to “Almost 99% of refugees I spoke with return to occupied territories because they could not establish a normal life in Ukraine-controlled areas, says Tuka.” The clarification reflected that Tuka referred only to people he had spoken with personally, not to 99% of IDPs across Ukraine. His statement was a personal assessment, not a statistic based on verified data.

According to official data, 4.6 million IDPs are registered in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration reported that as of August 2024, there were 3.67 million IDPs in Ukraine. Currently, there are no precise statistical data on the number of individuals who have returned to occupied territories.