Spaces of internal displacement: Understanding the hidden urban geographies of armed conflict in Ukraine

Abstract

Abstract Ukraine, like some other Eastern European post-communist countries, faced a military-political crisis during its subsequent development that led to a ‘new’ category of migrants: internally displaced persons (IDPs). This paper aims to deepen the understanding of the hidden urban geographies of internal displacement and the consequences of armed conflicts in large cities, in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian armed conflicts with a focus on major Ukrainian cities as primary recipients of Ukrainian IDPs. The difficulties faced by Ukrainian urban IDPs in adapting to new geopolitical and life realities and integrating into host communities are examined, as well as an elaboration of the spatial intra-urban patterns of IDP distributions. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to achieve the goals of the research. The data set consisted of official data, generalised survey results, and materials from in-depth interviews with urban IDPs from Donbas/Crimea. The empirical results of the study of urban IDPs in Ukraine shed light on patterns of the adaptation and integration of IDPs in large Ukrainian cities and help to understand more deeply the hidden urban geographies of internal displacement in large cities, in particular an understanding of the nature of intra-urban patterns of Ukrainian IDP distributions.