Ukraine’s refugees start over in Moldova as war drags on back home
The first thing Irina Stryapko does in the morning is contact her loved ones to see if they’re alive.
“On any given day I could lose them, because this is war,” she said with a fortified face. The tears welling in her eyes betrayed her composed demeanor.
Stryapko is one of 880,677 Ukrainian refugees who crossed the border into the Republic of Moldova after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and among the 115,303 who stayed on. Her beachside hometown of Odesa functioned as the Miami of the Black Sea for Ukrainians and Moldovans in peacetime, and lies only three hours by car from her new home in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital.
Her current reality drastically differs from the lives of those she worked alongside as a journalist back home. “My friends, half of my colleagues — journalists, photographers went to defend the homeland,” Stryapko said in crystalline Russian. “Instead of cameras and microphones, they took up arms to shield the nation.”
It’s rare for refugees to retain their former professions in a new country. That wasn’t the case for Stryapko, who is working as a news presenter at TV8 — a pro-democratic Moldovan television network with Romanian and Russian programming. In addition to being a Russian-speaking anchor, she hosts a talk show called “Good Evening, We Are From Ukraine,” which sheds light on issues Ukrainian nationals face in Moldova and examines internal discourse around refugees.
At a conference table within the TV8 studios, the 36-year-old sits upright and extended, a swan-like posture that comes with years behind the anchor desk. Her sharply-winged eyeliner, straightened wheat-colored hair and stretchy black midi dress conflict with her slippers — an off-camera, camera-ready look. She chuckles as she reflects on the “shock” the Moldovan audience must have felt with her sudden appearance as “some Ukrainian” who is not only a presenter but now has her own show. Her motto?
“When a person has a strong will, they can do anything.”
Life moved fast for Stryapko since the onset of the war, but she initially never intended to leave Ukraine. Doubling back then as a journalist and a head of a PR firm, she distracted herself with work and admitted she wasn’t as distraught as those around her when it came to impending danger. After the first few months of the invasion, both companies shuttered, leaving her unemployed. That’s when she decided to take up a friend’s offer to go on a getaway for a few weeks in Moldova.
A colleague, who knew of Stryapko’s Romanian language skills and of her recent arrival, recruited her for a position at TV8, where she soon felt “at home.” She’s now past her one-year mark with the station. “On the second day, I found an apartment and on the third, I was already at work.”
The refugee crisis is entering a new stage given the prolonged nature of the war, one that is directed at resettlement instead of immediate, temporary relief. Ina Taci, head of the Moldova branch of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), is working on finding refugees long-term employment so they may have access to housing, education and mental health services to build the next chapter of their lives.
Tcaci, who previously worked for the United Nations, recalled wanting to do more for refugees after seeing the “worst image” in her life while volunteering at the Moldova-Ukraine border at the start of the war.
“An early morning in March, there were some 3,000 people in line. Some died of cold in their cars, others were barefoot or wearing flip-flops,” she remembered as she pointed to the goosebumps springing up her arm. “One of the most shocking things was that none of the children under five were crying.”
Since opening a year ago, the IRC Moldova branch has established “healing classrooms” focused on the social well-being of children affected by trauma, and has provided employment to 50 refugees, she added. The IRC also works to find inclusive housing for LGBTQ groups disadvantaged by Moldova’s issues with homophobia.
Like many Moldovans, Tcaci hosted refugees in her home during the first waves of migration. She says the profile of refugees coming out of Ukraine differs from those in other countries where the IRC works. Ukrainian refugees tend to be educated, middle class and consist predominantly of women, children and the elderly because of Ukraine’s martial law barring most men from leaving, she said.
“Americans who know anything about Moldova know it’s a small country with a big heart,” Kent Logsdon, US ambassador to the Republic of Moldova said in a personal meeting in his office at the embassy. “You could see that when Moldovans opened their homes to refugees at the start of the Ukraine war, before the international community could help.”
With blue and yellow balloons in hand, Natalia Bibikova watches as one of her daughters gets face paint in a square outside a Chisinau art center. It’s the last day of the center’s “Ukrainian Film Days,” a three-day film festival concluding with a screening of a children’s cartoon. The kids play games with the whimsical, sequined hosts of the event as parents and guardians, mainly women, watch from the sidelines.
Bibikova, a single mother, fled to Moldova on February 27, 2022, just three days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Coming from Odesa with her two daughters, who recently finished second grade, she chose to stay in the country so they could continue their education in Russian as they did back home. Nestled between Romania and Ukraine, Romanian is the official language of landlocked Moldova, with Russian as a recognized minority language.
She says she’s enjoying the newfound free time she has with her girls after leaving behind her office job in Ukraine. In the beginning, she was living “day-by-day, month-by-month.” After over a year of living abroad, she’s only now “processing what happened.”
The desire to go home is strong. When watching the news, Bibikova recalled her daughter asking:
“Mama, this isn’t our house that was destroyed?”
Oksana Sayenko, with her toddler on her hip, echoed a similar sentiment. Sayenko, who moved to the republic in May from Kyiv Oblast with her husband and child, said the situation is “mentally challenging” and that she would go home if she could. She wants to see more events conducted in Ukrainian, rather than Russian so that the children could at least know their “mother tongue,” she expressed.
For Bibikova, the hardest part of living in Moldova is the uncertainty with housing. She lives in a “state of fear” because she doesn’t know how long her current housing situation will last — she initially worried she’d be kicked out after her daughters’ school year ended. An organization currently covers her housing, but if that were to end, Bibikova says she would have no choice but to move back to Ukraine since she cannot afford to pay rent herself.
Ukrainian nationals can apply for Temporary Protection in Moldova which offers a right to work, healthcare and possible housing accommodation within the country. It’s not a popular option. Out of the over 110,000 refugees recorded in Moldova, only 7 percent are registered for temporary protection.
According to Tcaci, the lack of registration is partly because most leases are done “illegally,” with landlords and tenants alike not wanting the hassle, and taxes, of registering them on the books. Temporary protection also only allows for 45 days spent outside of Moldova, with recipients obliged to report returns to Ukraine, something that conflicts with many who go back and forth between the border to see their families, she said.
While Bibikova and Sayenko agree the Moldovan response to the refugee crisis has treated them well, Bibikova says attitudes from individual Moldovans could be sour. They call us “Banderites,” referring to the Nazi-affiliated Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera, and claim, “This war is your fault,” she said.
As a post-Soviet state, Moldova is vulnerable to pro-Russia disinformation and propaganda that stokes internal issues with the current pro-European administration. In a two-part episode of “Good Evening, We Are From Ukraine,” Stryapko highlighted the “information war” in Moldova by investigating a viral TikTok video of a gas station clerk telling the Romanian-speaking videographer to “drop dead” in Ukrainian.
The text “*Ukrainian flag emoji* are making a mess in Moldova” was overlaid on the video, with users commenting “Send them home” and “You should have given more thought to who you accept into the country.”
After investigating the incident, Stryapko discovered the gas station clerk was not a refugee and was in fact born in Moldova, and that the short clip only showed the climax of a longer exchange where the customers provoked her.
The country is also one of the poorest in Europe. In 2020, the International Organization for Migration estimated almost a quarter of Moldovans lived abroad because of the lack of well-paid work opportunities within the country. Because of this work-related diaspora, remittances sent back home made up 15 percent of the country’s GDP in the same year.
The presence of Ukrainian refugees in the country’s small population of just over three million adds competition to the job market as the republic grapples with poverty, Tcaci said. The poverty rate in Moldova was 24.5 percent in 2021, according to the UN Development Programme.
Gathered at a park table in central Chisinau, Diana Calmatui, a 23-year-old Romanian speaker, said the number of refugees is “huge” and that “they can take our jobs.” She added that they can “cause trouble” and aren’t comfortable with what Moldova has to offer them.
If you told Silvy Rusu this war would happen five years ago, she would be “dumbfounded.” Sitting on a park bench with a girlfriend, the 58-year-old Moldovan believes “there is space for everyone” in her homeland. Rusu, who works as a caretaker in Italy and recently returned to Chisinau for a break, remembers the bygone Soviet era when “we were all one country.”
“My soul hurts,” she said in Russian, adding that she maintains relations with people from various post-Soviet republics, including Ukraine, but that they avoid political discourse. “We all once ate from the same apple and celebrated together. Now it’s like a wolf attacking a bunny…I don’t know if our grandchildren will ever experience that kind of friendship.”
Organizations like Moldova for Peace work to support refugees while giving back to the local community. Since February 2022, a once-vacant lot in a film studio on the outskirts of Chisinau has been transformed into a labyrinth of stacked boxes with some labeled “UNICEF.” Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” echoes through the lofty hall as a queue of displaced Ukrainian nationals forms to receive care packages.
An estimated 5,000–6,000 refugees are weekly beneficiaries of packages ranging from food, hygiene and school products distributed at the warehouse. Support comes from international partners, including the United Nations Relief Fund, to ordinary Moldovans who donate clothing and shoes. Qualified recipients can fill out an online form every 10 days specifying their family size and product requests before receiving a message when it’s time to pick up.
Pavlo, from Odesa, arrived at the distribution center with his five-year-old son Vlad. He said he mainly needs diapers for his toddler at home with his wife but that he’ll “take whatever,” as the packages “help a lot.” The 43-year-old works for Disney Cruise Line and is the only wage-earner in his family.
With a limited budget and supply, the team can’t afford to make individual exceptions. One mother, who said she needed diapers for her child who wets the bed, was denied her request because the child was over three years old, the cut-off for diaper distribution. Organizers say they’re constantly scouting new partners to ensure a seamless flow of products.
Natalia Rahmistriuc, the warehouse coordinator, hopes to go beyond aiding Ukrainian refugees. “We buy from Moldovan businesses, vendors and employ Moldovans,” she said. Rahmistriuc and her team of workers and volunteers foster community-building through open-invitation packaging events with a DJ and refreshments on Saturdays, and by hosting soccer games between Moldovan and Ukrainian teams.
Towering around seven feet, one volunteer stands out from the rest. But perhaps what’s most shocking about him to the refugees he meets is his Russian nationality.
Ivan, a pseudonym for the 24-year-old, was a professional basketball player since the age of 15 and left Russia when he felt he did not have a future in the sport. Encouraged by his father, he came to Moldova in July of 2022 to support “the other side” and said he found his purpose in volunteer work.
While Ukrainian refugees are surprised to learn where Ivan is from, he says he’s never experienced a negative reaction at work. Hearing their stories left him feeling “numb and overwhelmed” during his first months in the republic. He said:
“If I can change some people’s minds in Russia, that would be my legacy”
After the deaths of three close friends, Stryapko said she learned the scariest thing about war isn’t losing your home and livelihood. It is when, “Your loved ones are on the frontlines and they aren’t reachable for days. God forbid they don’t come back.”
“In the 21st century, we’re going through something in the center of Europe that can’t even be replicated in movies,” she said.
Reflecting on Moldova’s “colossal” undertaking as a transit and relocation hub for refugees, Stryapko said she’s “grateful to every single person” who is part of the effort. Seeing tens of thousands of Moldovans gather at a pro-European Union rally in late May made her “very happy” that the country is moving in a progressive direction.
“The appetite of the dragon is inexhaustible,” she said. “But if, God willing, Ukraine wins, Moldova also has a good future.”
“We have to stop this war and save humanity. As pathetic as that sounds, that’s the reality. It’s a wound that will never heal but it’s our destiny.”
