Introduction

Russia’s war in Ukraine, which started mostly as a “smooth” Russian annexation of Crimea in early 2014 and small-scale military conflict in the Donets Basin (Donbas) region the same year, has had dire consequences for Ukrainians and to lesser extent for Russians (Mykhnenko, 2020). Some of its major consequences include a large death toll of soldiers and civilians, millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), overseas refugees, severe injuries, war trauma, destroyed infrastructure and cultural monuments, increased energy and food prices, as well as a rife conflict between Russia and Ukraine that will probably not be over in the foreseeable future (Boman, 2023; Gentile, 2022; Mykhnenko, 2020). On a broader scale, the war increases geopolitical and military tensions, especially between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Russian federation.

Regarding many of the Ukrainian refugees, females (young girls to older women) make up the largest share of refugees as a direct consequence of Ukrainian president Voldomyr Zelensky’s mandatory military draft for all males between 18 and 60 years of age who consequently must remain in the country. That in turn implies that females constitute the main group who is leaving the country, whether temporarily or permanently. In 2022, millions of Ukrainians left for neighboring Poland, as well as Germany and other European countries (Gentile, 2022; UNHCR, 2022).

Many European countries are open for Ukrainians, and some states are known for particularly liberal and lenient migration policies (e.g., Cochran Beck et al., 2017; Larsen & Witoszek, 2023; Ruist, 2015). Despite the relative geographical and cultural proximity between Ukraine and other European countries, as well as the generally welcoming attitude in many localities towards Ukrainian people, it might still be difficult and demanding to adapt to a new life, whether culturally or economically (Kindler & Szulecka, 2013; Trlifajova & Formankova, 2022). Moreover, due to a set of constraints it is likely that many people are not able to migrate. Furthermore, the economic support in Ukraine is limited, and 2022 constitutes a year of financial hardship in most parts of Europe (Eurostat, 2023). Hence, this article examines the situation for a small group of Ukrainian women who had considered to migrate to other parts of Europe but in most cases could not.

The Current Study

The current study is exploratory, and as such it sets out to examine a number of Ukrainian women’s life situations, whether they are still in Ukraine as internally displaced persons, potential migrants, or have already left the country for another destination. They are predefined as “vulnerable” because of the current situation in Ukraine and for most Ukrainians overseas (e.g., Eurostat, 2023; UNHCR, 2022; Woroniecka-Krzyzanowska & Palaguta, 2017), but how and to which extent they are vulnerable might be different from one participant to another. In addition, it is important to emphasize that the understanding of material, financial, and physical vulnerability are akin to Campbell and Price’s (2016) definition of precarious workers, as all participants are unemployed or rely on temporary jobs. Four out of five rely on humanitarian aid as the major source of food, and as such they are similar to a large share of Ukrainians who reside in Ukraine (Eurostat, 2023).

Moreover, this study is concerned about topics and themes that transcend material, physical, emotional, and mental vulnerability, such as the understanding of the self in relation to culture, as well as the obstacles and possibilities that are closely related to the individual’s present situation. It contributes to earlier proculturation studies (e.g., Boman, 2022; Correira & Watkins, 2023; Gamsakhurdia, 2018) as well as both migration and cultural studies related to the Ukraine war and Ukrainian women (e.g., Boman, 2023; Larsen & Witoszek, 2023; Salaris & Tedesco, 2020).

The article aims to answer the following research question:

  1. 1.

    How do the participants experience their current life situation in terms of material and cultural conditions?

Background

Ukraine’s Economic, Political, and Cultural Profile in Relation to the current War

Ukraine is located in Eastern Europe, bordering several countries such as Belarus in the north, Russia in the east, and Poland, Moldova, and Romania in the west. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine became a sovereign state. Despite economic growth in the 1990s and early 2000s, the country’s GDP per capita is among the lowest in all of Europe, partly because the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and a continuous threat from Russia-backed separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk (Boman, 2021; Mykhnenko, 2020; World Factbook, 2023).

Politically, Ukraine is since 1991 a democratic republic, but like many other post-Soviet nations it has been plagued by widespread corruption and authoritarian elements (Kulyk, 2018; O’Brien, 2010; Sabatovych, 2017; The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020). Nonetheless, there is a willingness to be integrated into a larger Europe, the European Union in particular (Gentile, 2015, 2022).

Culturally, Ukraine is both a part of a broader east Slavic culture with strong Christian Orthodox features and a country with its particular historical memory, language, and way of life (e.g., Yekelchyk, 2007; Zhukova, 2022). About 17% of the country consisted of Russian speakers prior to the Russian invasion in 2014, which in part has been used as a justification for further escalation by the Moscow regime (Boman, 2023; Gentile, 2015, 2020).

After the small-scale war in 2014 onwards (during which Russia illegally annexed Crimea, as well as parts of the Donbas region by means of pro-Russian separatists), many Ukrainian citizens have become internally displaced refugees (Eurostat, 2023; Woroniecka-Krzyzanowska & Palaguta, 2017). This situation has substantially worsened since Russia escalated the conflict on February 24 in 2022.

As of the last quarter of 2022, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates the number of Ukrainian overseas refugees in Europe to almost 13 million (UNHCR, 2022), a number that is likely decreasing in 2023 due to a substantial number of returnees (Eurostat, 2023). That implies that more than a quarter of its civilian population has fled since 2014, with the largest share leaving in 2022. In addition, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died, and large additional numbers of civilians have been forced to stay in occupied territories (Boman, 2023; Eurostat, 2023; Gentile, 2022).

Conceptual Framework

As Valsiner (2014) notes, “Culture is not an entity, a “thing” that one “has,” or “gets” (by assimilation or socialization), but the active process of mediating human lives through signs, both intra- and inter-psychologically. The central issue for cultural psychology is to locate culture in the life activities of agentive persons. These persons are meaning-makers, and the meanings made frame their relations with the environment.”

The term acculturation is important for accurately describing and analyzing how for example migrants gradually become accustomed to a new host society (e.g., Berry, 1997; Chirkov, 2009; Kwak, 2010). The term proculturation, as suggested by Gamsakhurdia (2018, 2019), is similar but emphasizes the real-life experiences of migrants, as well as the combination of novel and previously unknown phenomena and experiences (Gamsakhurdia, 2019). In that regard, proculturation partly resembles cultural hybridization (e.g., Boman, 2021; Pieterse, 2015) but focuses specifically on individuals’ adaptation processes within new or assumed environments. Another theoretical benefit with proculturation, compared to acculturation, is the multidirectional possibilities embedded in the concept (i.e., there might be more than two cultures that meet or influence an individual), as well as the possibility of semiotic transformation into a new synthesis related to the person’s identity and meaning-making processes. In other words, proculturation may “produce” or enable cultural novelties (Gamsakhurdia, 2019, 2020).

When aiming to come closer to the real, lived experiences of individuals, it is important to pay attention to nuances and what it may mean to move from place A to B. Gamsakhurdia (2019) suggests:

So, emigration is the field where semiotic mediation might be intensified due to the change of a living environment; however, it does not necessarily imply mindblowing jump from one radically different cultural planet to another. Due to the intense globalization and spread of online mass media, information and technologies are shared so easily and so widely, that it is highly unlikely that any emigrant can find any host society/culture, which would be totally new/unfamiliar to him/ her. Most emigrants are already acquainted with potential host societies, at least up to some level. (p. 165)

In other words, a (young) person who is living in a country such as Ukraine tends to be familiar with global communication tools like smartphones and social media apps, and through these and other sources he or she might be aware of the general economic, political, social, and cultural conditions of the place that he or she seeks to move to at a later time. Hence, the interdependence between the old and the new elements of two or more cultures is crucial as regards proculturation theory (Gamsakhurdia, 2018, 2020).

While some earlier studies on female Ukrainian migrant workers (e.g., Trlifajova & Formankova, 2022) have focused on the relationship between structure and agency, proculturation appears better conceptually suited for those women who experience difficulties of leaving, while also highlighting the cultural dynamics to a greater extent than the structure–agency dyad.

Methodology and Methods

The current article builds on a combination of a semi-structured interview and semi-autobiographical narration (Wengraf, 2001). Specifically, the author compiled a narrative based on the information retrieved from the interviews with the interviewees (Josselson, 2004). The limited number of observations imply that broader generalizations cannot be made from these data (c.f., Molenaar & Valsiner, 2005). Instead, these constitute a theoretically meaningful case study (Flyvbjerg, 2011).

Through social media, a convenience sample (N = 5), all in their early to late 20s, of Ukrainian women were collected as participants for the project. The basic inclusion criteria constitute that these were persons who identify as a young adult woman/female (18–30 years of age), is a citizen of Ukraine, and had already migrated or seriously considered to migrate to another country. In socio-economic terms, all were considered middle-class by Ukrainian standards but poor in a broader European context. Due to ethical concerns, all participants were given a pseudonym, and the specific age, occupational position (before or during the war that escalated in 2022), and city of sojourn were left out. Brief descriptors of the participants are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Descriptors of the participants
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All of the interviews were carried through in 2022 and lasted between 60 and 120 min, with written follow-up interactions through Telegram and/or e-mail in all cases. One interview was conducted face-to-face in a European country while the rest were carried through exclusively in an online format through the communication app Telegram, specifically as video calls. A mix between Russian and English, as well as translations from English to Russian and from Russian to English, was required in four out of five cases but English was the dominant language in all cases. Each participant received a small monetary reward in exchange for the participation.

In accordance with for instance qualitative content analysis (e.g., Fairclough, 2003; Krippendorff, 2018), the sociocultural, sociohistorical, and economic contexts and earlier literature were used to situate the autobiographical narrative patterns in a meaningful way and corroborate or contextualize the findings from other sources. Gamsakhurdia (2018, 2019, 2020) does not suggest any specific limitations on how proculturation might be applied methodologically, but the author has followed a qualitative and hermeneutic approach in that respect, which is akin to the earlier articles that have elaborated the concept and its application (e.g., Boman, 2022; Gamsakhurdia, 2018). Specifically, I have considered the three-dimensional perspectives among the interviewees, which include previous knowledge and experiences, current conditions, as well as expectations projected on the short- and long-term future (Gamsakhurdia, 2020, pp. 82–83).

The semi-structured interview, which was used in this case (e.g., Bryman, 2011; McIntosh & Morse, 2015), aimed to collect basic information about age, educational trajectory, reasons for migrating, cultural self-identification, and how the work and financial situation was currently constituted. In addition, the author paid interest to how discursive entities such as Ukraine, Russia, and Europe were constructed. Wengraf (2001) stresses that questionnaires in narrative research can be elaborated with a substantial degree of flexibility. The author accentuates the need for basic informative questions as a starting point (this is partly done to avoid misunderstandings), followed by more open-ended and exploratory questions.

In line with McIntosh and Morse (2015), the position taken by the author was mainly interpretive/descriptive, meaning that the author aimed to describe patterns with precision but also interpreted proculturation processes based on the interviewee’s sharing of information. This implies that the theoretical context influenced the interpretation of the data (Bryman, 2011; Krippendorff, 2018). Specifically, the meaning-making, dialogical, and semiotic processes of the interviewees were highlighted in regard to the analysis and presentation of the interview data (Gamsakhurdia, 2020; Markova, 2003).

The interviews focused on a set of interconnected themes that were discerned in interactive processes between the researcher’s a priori ideas and the discourses and narratives of the participants that emerged a posteriori, during or after the interviews. They followed from both the informative and exploratory questions that are listed in the Appendix. The data were analyzed by compiling to the data from the notes into coherent narratives that are related to the theoretical framework (Clarke & Braun, 2014). The themes are as follows:

  1. 1.

    Current situation regarding material, psychological, and physical well-being.

  2. 2.

    Main reasons for migrating.

  3. 3.

    What affects the preferred destination country.

A prerequisite for a discussion between the interviewer–interviewee about the interpretations of the utterances was that the author was transparent and clear about the included information and what it meant, and even used some Russian concepts and back-and-forth translations (from English to Ukrainian or Russian) to avoid misinterpretations and misrepresentations. Nonetheless, this procedure comes with some limitations in terms of the potential discrepancy between the interviewer–interviewee’s interpretive frames (e.g., Gadamer, 2013; Markova, 2003; Valsiner, 2014). Put differently, the author could never reflect the exact interpretation of the interviewees and these individuals’ specific life situations. On the other hand, the author could in part use a more unattached and “objective” approach which comes with some advantages (e.g., Bryman, 2011; Ratner, 2002).

Similar to Trlifajova and Formankova (2022), I have divided the narratives of the five participants into separate sections within the broader section Results and Discussion, followed by a short summary. Due to the small sample size, it was possible to include all participants. However, at some points connections between the different themes, narratives, and participants are highlighted.

Research Ethics

The procedures that underlie this article, as well as its content, conform to the ethical guidelines stipulated by the Swedish Research Council (2002, 2017). Key principles and criteria include consent (i.e., any participant must have the possibility to give consent in order for the research project to proceed), confidentiality (i.e., not disclosing any participants’ official identity), information (i.e., providing adequate information about the aim and purpose of the research and what it implies to participate), and utilization (i.e., the data collected through for example interviews or questionnaires will only be used for research purposes and often stored in accordance with specific data storage guidelines). In this specific case, no interview was recorded, and the notes as well as the chat conversations and e-mails were deleted afterwards. Moreover, in accordance with the Ethical Review Act (2003, p. 460), as the participants were over 15 years old (all were over 20 years old), no parental consent or ethical vetting procedures were required.

In addition, the author paid attention to transparency and participant checking (Tracy, 2010), as well as to not disclose too much information (about the interviewee) in order to consider the interviewee’s vulnerable position as a female migrant. That is also why quotes are somewhat sparse in the current article, as these might disclose information about the specific parlance of the interviewee. That is also why specific social media outlets, where participants were reached, are not mentioned besides Telegram. All quotes are summarized and worded by the author.

Results and Discussion

Elena: A Precarious Live in One of the “People’s Republics”

Elena lives in the eastern part of Ukraine, in one of the Donbas regions that were annexed by pro-Russian separatists in 2014. The region has become increasingly “russified” and has unofficially been seen as a part of Russia even before the large-scale invasion in 2022 (e.g. Boman, 2023). This region is characterized by on the one hand an older and less educated pro-Soviet (but not necessarily pro-Russian federation) older demographic fraction and on the other hand a younger, more educated and more pro-Europe (but not necessarily pro-NATO) counterpart (Gentile, 2015).

The interviewee conveys that she decided to stay there because at least she had an apartment and job, although with a small monthly income. She felt more secure to stay than to leave, but over the years she had often seriously considered to leave the region and migrate to some other country in Europe. Russia, however, is not seen as a viable option. “There is no life there,” Elena suggests. Like the other interviewees she despises the Putin regime and finds little attractive or worthwhile about a life situation in the Russian federation (e.g., Feklyunina, 2012, 2016), although the degree to which this is stressed differs between participants. She uses Ukrainian and international dating apps and websites to potentially interact with and meet a “serious boyfriend” and “potential husband”. However, this was before 2022. Nowadays she only thinks about basic survival on a day-to-day basis.

Elena often construes Europe as something different than the Donbas region. Eastern Ukraine is indeed a part of Europe but has not yet become fully integrated into its economic and political sphere. Instead, it has experienced almost a reverse process since 2014. Such differences are probably more pronounced in the Donbas regions compared to the capital Kiev and the areas in Ukraine’s west (Mykhnenko, 2020). Hence, Europe is what Elena hopes for, both for herself and for Ukraine’s sake. Russia is what she wants to avoid. However, the Russian language is not described in negative terms. She speaks it frequently, as it is informally the only language that is currently used in the annexed parts of the Donbas.

The material and humanitarian situation in the Donbas, where Elena still resides alone, is described as critical. The possibility to work under normal conditions is severely curtailed and the constant shelling from both the Ukrainian and Russian military compels citizens to stay hours or even days in bomb shelters, typically a basement in one of the apartment buildings in the neighborhood’s vicinity. Citizens in the region have to rely on aid from the Russian federation or volunteers with access to both the Ukrainian and Russian territories. Food and energy supplies are often in shortage (Eurostat, 2023).

When the author mentions concrete national examples such as Germany or Sweden, Elena underlines that a hypothetical country of destination is all about where a potential man lives: “If I meet a good and decent man, then I will move there. If I meet someone from Sweden, well, then I will go there if it’s possible. Then Sweden becomes my new favorite country.” This discourse is largely repeated by Yana and Alina. Thus, the country where they wished to be received depends on basic factors such as where the person one potentially meet resides, according to such a perspective.

Daryna: A Temporary Worker in Europe

Another participant, Daryna, says she had spoken Russian in all her life but has become much more anti-Russian lately. She wants to speak more Ukrainian in the future. Compared to Elena, Daryna’s English is very poor, which is somewhat ironic as the Donbas is associated with pro-Russian proclivities whereas Kiev is associated with westernization (Boman, 2023). Yana, whose English is also limited, stresses that “Russian is the language of terrorists,” while Kateryna still speaks and writes in Russian but despises the Russian federation and its invading army.

In this regard, Daryna’s situation is different than that of Elena. She has used her own resources, as well some money from her parents, to leave. In the next step, she took advantage of her educational background to secure a temporary position in the receiving EU country. She described the situation there as difficult but that she muddles through for now. However, like the others she stressed the importance of finding a man who could offer her financial support. Nonetheless, she only considered to work with a regular job. To become an escort was not an option. All five women in this study seem to draw a sharp line between financial support and prostitution.

Alina: Unfinished Business in Kiev as a Partial Constraining Factor

Another pertinent aspect is that several participants consider staying in Ukraine to be a viable option, at least the relatively safer cities such as Lviv and Kiev. Therefore, all except Daryna had decided to stay for the moment, although this was partly or largely done due to the migratory restrictions (i.e., money, safety). Some, such as Alina, underscore that they also had unfinished business in Ukraine (obtaining a degree certificate from the university where she had attended), while others were much more eager to leave at any moment. Perhaps that is because the degree of relative physical safety/non-safety differs between the regions of Ukraine (Gentile, 2022).

Furthermore, Alina is the participant who also accentuates the importance of having a real life and a brighter future. She says that she had done enough for her country already, and now it is time to think about herself. Earlier she worked as a nanny in a large family near the Kharkov region. Like Elena she accentuates the significance of having a “serious boyfriend” as a key element but also has her own plans to work and lead a prosperous life. No participant is seemingly a blatant “gold-digger” (e.g., Fisher et al., 2022), but it is taken for granted that a man should provide for her, especially in the initial phases. As Elena puts it: “Unfortunately, everything in this world is about money. Well, not everything, but it’s extremely important. I mean, how could I leave this place without money? It’s impossible.”

The material situation is overall considered the greatest obstacle, followed by psychical well-being, for migrating as regards four out of the five participants (one had already left). In other words, even though none of the participants were sick they had to make sure that the roads were safe enough to travel with a bus or car (in a joint effort with other random people in most of the cases, as this process was described by the participants). This information might be difficult to confirm in a factual sense but as an emerging narrative which is discerned throughout the interviews, it is underscored in close relation to the migratory processes (i.e., leaving the country).

Kateryna: The Love of Ukraine as a Reason to Stay

Another participant, Kateryna (who has moved from different locations in the south and south-east), stresses that she did not really want to leave the war-torn country as she “loves Ukraine”. The patriotic notions are also highlighted by Daryna, the only participant who had thus far left the country. As a person with a sort of medical-related degree she is afraid that she might be ordered to go to the front lines and provide medical assistance to the soldiers. The risk of dying would be too high for it to be worthwhile. She asserts: “I am a patriot, but I think it is the men who should do the fighting. I am hiding in another country, yes, but it’s the men’s duty and too many of them are hiding in Europe.” During the interview, she showed pictures of some of the bomb shelters in Kiev where she had been staying in March and April. Furthermore, she conveys that essentially all of her male friends and acquaintances, who are typically young, had died in the first months of the war. This affected her unwillingness to return before the war has come to an end or at least the situation has improved substantially.

However, even Kateryna stresses that if more financial resources were at her disposal, she would leave Ukraine and then return when appropriate. The optimal situation would be to be able to go back and forth. Hence, the kind of agency that foreign workers have in a post-migration context (e.g., Trlifajova & Formankova, 2022) is not as concrete for these young women who (must) reside in Ukraine. Instead, this discursive notion highlights a form of cultural perception of Ukraine, which signifies patriotism. Ukraine is currently a dangerous and precarious place but it is still home.

Yana: The Slow Life in Ukraine’s West

Yana resides in a city in Ukraine’s western region, where she has stayed both before and during the entire full-scale war started. She claims to only live with her grandmother. Due to financial difficulties (like Elena and Kateryna she is currently unemployed) she has to rely on humanitarian aid in the city center, which typically offers two small meals per day for each individual who comes.

Like Elena and Alina, she sees no reason to stay and stresses that she wants to leave Ukraine as soon as possible. However, she is a bit worried about her grandmother but hopes that she could go to Poland and stay with some relatives there. Yana’s English is very poor, and although she holds a bachelor’s degree she considers a man in Europe to be the “silver bullet” that will solve her situation rather than her own potential ability to work and secure sufficient income. In fact, that is the only option she considers realistic as she has no money and steady stream of income. On the other hand, she is not unwilling to work in a later phase. Unlike Alina, Yana has not made any internal migration processes whatsoever. Hence, she describes the life in Ukraine’s west as slow and tough, especially when electricity supplies are temporarily cut off.

Yana does not emphasize any particular patriotic proclivities but underlines that “Russian is the language of terrorists” and never uses it, neither in speech nor writing. As such she considers Ukraine to be the home of the Ukrainian language, rather than emphasizing bilingualism, much less any understanding of Russia’s official reasons for the situation this invasion has led to for herself and many others.

Summary

The nexus between current predicaments, which potentially push the participants out of Ukraine and randomness regarding the country of destination, is accentuated in many interviews. Meaning that a receiving country could be for example Poland, Germany, UK, Sweden, or somewhere else. However, all of them are portrayed as better options than Ukraine under the current conditions. Not because Ukraine is bad in itself but because the danger and difficulties make life hard there. The various states are all part of the safe and prosperous Europe, as it is depicted in the narratives. A Europe that is culturally similar, friendly, and open, but to go there from the war-ridden Ukraine is not always so easy. For instance, Sweden is described in at least moderately positive words. It is designated as a prosperous and safe country. Negative nuances such as the recent epidemic in gun violence (e.g., Wilhelmsson et al., 2022) are not mentioned, perhaps because the knowledge and information about particular countries are scarce and limited. Moreover, the participants seem to have other priorities. It is a luxury problem to reflect upon such “details”. However, it might be possible that the understanding of a receiving country might be transformed once one actually gets there. As far as Daryna’s experiences in a receiving country, she does not stress the material superiority of this country. In fact, she misses some things from Kiev such as particular local foodstuffs and clothes stores. This may indicate that other European countries are not necessarily regarded as better options than Ukraine in peace times. It might also imply a sense of increased patriotism, which might be regarded as a procultural dynamic between the old culture and the new culture. The new culture offers safety but perhaps not so much else, at least in the short term.

All participants also highlight the degree of stress they have felt during the war and are, in four out of five cases, perhaps still experiencing on a regular basis as the conflict drags on in 2023 (Eurostat, 2023). Psychological well-being per se is, however, not the main reason for leaving the Ukrainian territory. This is instead related to money and safety, which are also the key constraints for actually leaving. Implicitly, it is underlined that men must help them to leave and be willing to provide economic assistance in the future. The reasons for leaving, the constraints for leaving, potential solutions, as well as the cultural themes that emerged are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2 Reasons, solutions, and cultural themes
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Concluding Remarks

The current article sets out to explore how a limited number of vulnerable women from the war-torn Ukraine, which is deeply affected by the Russian invasion on many levels, describe their current situation, as well as the constraints and possibilities to migrate to another European country. In addition, attention was also paid to cultural dynamics such as how Ukraine, Russia, and Europe were discursively constructed. The analysis and results were informed by proculturation theory (e.g., Gamsakhurdia, 2018, 2020).

It is mostly the material and economic difficulties that hinder these women from migrating, although it also seems to be that some other factors influence the decisions made (e.g., unfinished businesses in Ukraine, love of the country, family members, and friends residing there). The most immediate constraint, as well as the reason for leaving, could be the physical safety. Such limitations, however, are often possible to overcome by having enough money at one’s disposal. A person with sufficient financial means could simply wait until an opportunity comes and then leave. Financial means are, indeed, also the gravest issue for these women and main reason why they are still residing in Ukraine. Even though voluntary activities, whether formally or informally constituted, help these and other Ukrainians with basic survival (food, shelter) the government or other assisting organizations do not hand out money to the extent that all could leave the country in order to seek safety in other parts of Europe. The unemployment rates in Ukraine are currently about 30% (Eurostat, 2023).

Regarding cultural themes, Europe is described as something familiar, like a monolithic friendly and prosperous neighbor. Unfortunately, however, four out of five participants had not yet been able to migrate there. This pro-European sentiment is also negotiated with more pro-Ukrainian notions. One participant, who has relocated to a European country, stresses that the new country is safer but lacks some of the things that she used to like in Ukraine’s capital Kiev. This indicates a procultural dynamic between the old and the new. The individual who has left sees the benefits of Ukraine from the perspective of a new location and culture, while also being psychically safer. Others may have a stronger sense of urgency and therefore sees the rest of Europe in an unequivocally positive light.

The level of patriotism is high, and when some have unfinished businesses or family members who still reside there it is not an easy decision to leave. Russia is consistently described as a despicable political entity, although the attitudes towards the Russian language differ from negative to neutral. The most positive cultural notion derives from a participant who resides in the east, when describing the situation in Donbas as trilingual. At one point she even considers it is “amazing” that she could, to different extents, master English, Russian, and Ukrainian. Some of these preliminary findings resonate with those of Trlifajova and Formankova (2022). However, unlike Trlifajova and Formankova’s (2022) study on Ukrainian female migrant workers in the Czech Republic the current study focused much less on structure and agency and more of the lack of agency (e.g., cannot leave without sufficient financial support), as well as the depicted intercultural dynamics in a war-torn context.

Proculturation theory (e.g., Gamsakhurdia, 2020) implies that old and new cultural features are mixed in novel ways that tap into the past, present, and future. The results indicate that depending on the current life situation, Ukraine is understood as a more or less dangerous place that all want to leave, often sooner than later. However, that does not imply that they resent their home country. Instead, patriotic tendencies and anti-Russian sentiments appear palpable among most of the participants. Even if the immediate physical safety and material well-being is the main concern, all participants partake in cultural discourses about for example the meaning of Ukraine, Europe, and the Russian language. Such nuanced and multi-faceted understandings could not be grasped by quantitative acculturation theory and methods (Gamsakhurdia, 2020).

The current study has several limitations. The participants constitute a small convenience sample which were allocated through social media. However, as this is a theoretically meaningful case study, which is more focused on depth than broader generalizations, this does not refute the findings. The discourses, as they are conveyed by these participants, are important as authentic and meaningful lived instances (e.g., Gamsakhurdia, 2020). Moreover, the selection of participants may imply that only pro-European/Western and pro-Ukrainian women are willing to participate as the author is associated with Europe/the West. On the other hand, recent data point to that virtually all Ukrainians are pro-Ukrainian and perhaps also pro-Western in their ideological and cultural orientation (Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 2022). It is also possible that some or all participants are hiding some motives, factors, and preferences as regards the migration processes and current life situation (e.g., Josselson, 2004).

Nonetheless, it is the author’s hope that this exploratory case study may inspire continuous qualitative and quantitative research on vulnerable Ukrainian women, as well as other women in similar or different situations, in a European continent that is currently characterized by severe economic and military hardships, as well as an almost unpresented level of political uncertainty. For example, future studies may give voice to more women and highlight other issues and aspects that may have been neglected in the current study.