More than 870,000 Ukrainians have returned to the country since the start of the invasion, border force officials have said.
Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service said hundreds of thousands had returned to the country but around three million people had fled the country since the start of Vladimir Putin’s war on February 24.
Around 25,000 to 30,000 Ukrainians are now returning to the country each day, border force spokesperson Andriy Demchenko said.
Queues of returnees at the Medyka crossing in south-eastern Poland were seen in footage which played out on Good Morning Britain.
Thousands of people are now making the journey back home to Ukraine. Very long queue this morning at the Medyka crossing in south east Poland 🇵🇱 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/sWtKAP82No
— Nick Dixon (@NickDixonITV) April 13, 2022
“They say they see that the situation is safer, especially in the western regions and they can no longer stay abroad,” Demchenko told journalists.
“They are ready to return to the country and stay here.”
There are reports of some people returning to the Kyiv region which had been held by Russian forces until strong Ukrainian resistance forced them into a withdrawal.
However, officials - including Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar - have urged caution and said it is too early to return to areas around the capital.
In the town of Irpin, resident Olexiy Planida worked to place a sheet of plastic over a large window at his home after returning for the first time since fleeing with his wife as well as their two small children and their dog.
The remains of breakfast, including a half-eaten bowl on a high chair, were where they left them.
“It hurts,” Mr Planida, 34, told an Associated Press reporter.
He said Russian troops had broken the apartment’s doors and took a laptop, iPad and jewellery.
“I think for a couple of years it can’t be fixed,” he said of Irpin’s homes, many of which have suffered similar damage or worse.
He said he hoped his two children would never remember the war which he and his wife have tried to explain in gentle terms.
“We’re just talking to them like, ‘Hey, some bad guys came to us,’” he said. “They shouldn’t see such things.”
A neighbour Oksana Lyul’ka cleared broken glass from her living room floor, having returned for the first time since fleeing Iprin on the second day of war, the news agency also reported.
“We can’t make plans for now," she said. “Our plan is to win the war, and then we will decide what to do with the apartment. It’s not that important now.
“We all feel pain and it’s hard and it’s terrible, but people are suffering, people are dying, and this is the main problem.”
The increase in the numbers returning comes after Russian forces retreated from near Kyiv in preparation for an expected offensive in the eastern Donbas region of the country.
