The Ukrainian diaspora comprises Ukrainians and people of Ukrainian descent living outside Ukraine. It developed through several major waves of migration, beginning with large-scale emigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Later waves followed the political upheavals and wars of the 20th century, the post-war period, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence in 1991. Migration caused by the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, and especially the full-scale Russian invasion beginning in 2022, has been described as a further major wave of Ukrainian emigration.
Ukrainian communities are found throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, North America and South America. Long-established diasporas developed in the former Soviet states and the Americas, while migration since the 1990s created large communities in Central and Western Europe. The 2022 invasion caused mass displacement and greatly increased the Ukrainian population abroad. In June 2026, 4.41 million people who had fled Ukraine were under temporary protection in the European Union, with Germany, Poland and Czechia hosting the largest numbers.
Distribution The Ukrainian diaspora is found throughout numerous countries worldwide. It is particularly concentrated in other post-Soviet states (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Russia), Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland), North America (Canada and the United States), and South America (Argentina and Brazil).
History 1608 to 1880
After the loss suffered by the Cossack-Swedish Alliance under Ivan Mazepa in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, some political emigrants, primarily Cossacks, settled in Turkey and in Western Europe.
In 1775, after the fall of the Zaporozhian Sich to the Russian Empire, some more Cossacks emigrated to Dobruja in the Ottoman Empire (now in Romania), while others settled in Volga and Ural regions of the Russian Empire.
In the second half of the 18th century, Ukrainians from the Transcarpathian Region formed agricultural settlements in the Kingdom of Hungary, primarily in the Bačka and Syrmia regions. Both are now located in the Vojvodina Region of the Republic of Serbia.
In time, Ukrainian settlements emerged in the major European capitals, including Vienna, Budapest, Rome and Warsaw.
1880–1920
In 1880, the Ukrainian diaspora consisted of approximately 1.2 million people, which represented approximately 4.6% of all Ukrainians, and was distributed as follows:
0.7 million in the European part of the Russian Empire 0.2 million in Austro-Hungary 0.1 million in the Asian part of the Russian Empire 0.1 million in the United States
In the last quarter of the 19th century due to the agrarian resettlement, a massive emigration of Ukrainians from Austro-Hungary to the Americas and from the Russian Empire to the Urals and Asia (Siberia and Kazakhstan) occurred.
A secondary movement was the emigration under the auspices of the Austro-Hungarian government of 10,000 Ukrainians from Galicia to Bosnia.
Furthermore, due to Russian agitation, 15,000 Ukrainians left Galicia and Bukovina and settled in Russia. Most of these settlers later returned.
Finally in the Russian Empire, some Ukrainians from the Chełm and Podlaskie regions, as well as most of the Jews, emigrated to the Americas.
Some of those who left their homeland returned. For example, from the 393,000 Ukrainians who emigrated to the United States, 70,000 returned.
Most of the emigrants to the US worked in the construction and mining industries. Many worked in the US on a temporary basis to earn remittances.
In the 1890s, Ukrainian agricultural settlers emigrated first to Brazil and Argentina. However, the writings of Galician professor and nationalist Dr Joseph Oleskiw were influential in redirecting that flow to Canada. He visited an already-established Ukrainian block settlement, which had been founded by Iwan Pylypiw, and met with Canadian immigration officials. His two pamphlets on the subject praised the United States as a place for wage labour, but stated that Canada was the best place for agricultural settlers to obtain free land. By contrast he was fiercely critical of the treatment Ukrainian settlers had received in South America. After his writings, the slow trickle of Ukrainians to Canada greatly increased.
Before the start of the First World War, almost 500,000 Ukrainians emigrated to the Americas. This can be broken down by country as follows: to the United States: almost 350,000 to Canada: almost 100,000 to Brazil and Argentina: almost 50,000
In 1914, the Ukrainian diaspora in the Americas numbered about 700,000-750,000 people:
500,000-550,000 in the US almost 100,000 in Canada approximately 50,000 in Brazil 50,000 in Argentina
Most of the emigrants to the Americas belonged to the Greek Catholic Church. This led to the creation of Greek Catholic bishops in Canada and the US. The need for solidarity led to the creation of Ukrainian religious, political, and social organisations. These new Ukrainian organisations maintained links with the homeland, from which books, media, priests, cultural figures, and new ideas arrived. Furthermore, local influence, as well as influence from their homeland, led to the process of a national re-awakening. At times, the diaspora was ahead of their time in this re-awakening.
Emigrants from the Transcarpathian and Lemko regions created their own organisations and had their own separate Greek Catholic church hierarchy (the Ruthenian Catholic Church). These emigrants are often considered to be Rusyns or Ruthenians and are considered by some to be distinct from other Ukrainians. However, in Argentina and Brazil, immigrants from Transcarpathia and the Lemko Region did identify themselves as Ukrainians.
The majority of the Ukrainian diaspora in the Americas focused on obtaining independence and convincing outside powers to join its war against the Soviets. The two nationalist governments which existed simultaneously; The Ukrainian People’s Republic, and The West Ukrainian People’s Republic (whose more progressive government was exiled by the former) both sent delegates to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. An interesting note is the role the Ruthenians played to convince the American government about the inclusion of the Transcarpathian region into the Czechoslovak Republic in 1919.
In contrast, the Ukrainian diaspora in the Russian Empire, and especially in Asia, was primarily agrarian. After 1860, the diaspora was primarily located in the Volga and Ural Regions, while in the last quarter of that century, due to a lack of space for settlement, the diaspora expanded into Western Siberia, Turkestan, the Far East, and even into the Zeleny Klyn. In the 1897 census there were 1,560,000 Ukrainians divided as follows:
In the European part of the empire: 1,232,000 In the Volga and Urals: 393,000 In the non-Ukrainian (ethnographically speaking) parts of Kursk and Voronezh Regions: 232,000 Almost 150,000 in Bessarabia. In the Asian part of the empire: 311,000 In the Caucasus region: 117,000
In the next few decades, Ukrainian emigration to Asia increased (almost 1.5 million Ukrainians emigrated), leading to almost 2 million Ukrainians in the Asian part of the Russian Empire by 1914. Consequently, the Russian Empire had approximately 3.4 million Ukrainians. Most of this population was assimilated due to a lack of national awareness and closeness with the local Russian population, especially in religion.
Unlike the emigrants from Austro-Hungary, the Ukrainian emigrants in the Russian Empire did not create their own organisations nor were there many interactions with their homeland. The revolution of 1917 allowed the creation of Ukrainian organisations, which were linked with the national and political rebirth in Ukraine.
1920–1945 First major political emigration The First World War and the Russian Civil War led to the first massive political emigration, which strengthened the existing Ukrainian communities by infusing them with members from various political, scientific, and cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, some of these new emigrants formed Ukrainian communities in Western and Central Europe. Thus, new communities were created in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, Austria, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The largest was in Prague, which was considered one of the centres of Ukrainian culture and political life (after Lviv and Kraków).
This group of emigrants created many different organisations and movements associated with corresponding groups in the battle for independence. A few Ukrainian universities were founded. Furthermore, many of these organisations were associated with the exiled Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian People's Republic.
During the 1920s, the new diaspora maintained links with now-Soviet Ukraine. A Sovietophile movement appeared, whereby former opponents of the Bolsheviks began to argue that Ukrainians should support Soviet Ukraine. Some argued that they should do so because the Soviet republics were the leaders of international revolution, while others claimed that the Bolsheviks' social and national policies benefited Ukraine. This movement included Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Yevhen Petrushevych. Many émigrés, including Hrushevskyi, returned and helped the Bolsheviks implement their policy of Ukrainianisation. However, the abandonment of Ukrainianisation, the return to collectivisation, and the man-made famine of 1932–33 ended Ukrainianisation. Most of the links were broken, with the exception of some Sovietophile organisations in Canada and the United States.
On the other hand, the Canadian and American diaspora maintained links with the Ukrainian community in Galicia and the Transcarpathian Region.
The political emigration decreased in the mid-1920s due to a return to Soviet Ukraine and a decline in students studying at the Ukrainian universities established outside of Ukraine.
Economic emigration In 1920 and 1921, many Ukrainians left Western Ukraine to settle in the Americas and Western Europe. Most of the emigrates settled in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, France, the UK and Belgium. The economic crisis of the early 1930s stopped most of this emigration. The emigration picked up again later in the decade. The number of emigrants can be approximated as:
to Canada: almost 70,000 Ukrainians; to Argentina: 50,000 Ukrainians; to France: 35,000 Ukrainians; to the United States: 15,000 Ukrainians; to Brazil: 10,000 Ukrainians; to Paraguay and Uruguay: a couple of thousand Ukrainians.
Furthermore, many Ukrainians left the Ukrainian SSR and settled in Asia due to political and economic factors, primarily collectivisation and the famine of the 1930s.
Size
The Ukrainian diaspora, outside of the Soviet Union, was 1.7-1.8 million people:
In the Americas: In the United States: 700–800,000 Ukrainians In Canada: 250,000 Ukrainians In Argentina: 220,000 Ukrainians In Brazil: 80,000 Ukrainians In Western and Central Europe: In Moldova: approximately 360,000 Ukrainians In Poland: 100,000 Ukrainians In France: 40,000 Ukrainians In Yugoslavia: 40,000 Ukrainians In Czechoslovakia: 35,000 Ukrainians In other countries: 15–20,000 Ukrainians
According to the Soviet census of 1926, there were 3,450,000 Ukrainians living outside of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, divided as follows:
In the European part of the Soviet Union: 1,310,000 Ukrainians 242,000 Ukrainians living on land neighbouring the Ukrainian ethnic territory 771,000 Ukrainians in the Volga and Ural regions In the Asian part of the Soviet Union: 2,138,000 Ukrainians 861,000 Ukrainians in Kazakhstan 830,000 Ukrainians in Siberia 315,000 Ukrainians in the Far East 64,000 Ukrainians in Kyrgyzstan 33,000 Ukrainians in the Central Asian Republic 35,000 Ukrainians in the Caucasus Region.