Anna Karolina Eriksson/TT
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“I am very grateful to Sweden. There are no bombs here and it is easier to integrate here,” says Mariia Zakharenko from Kiev, when TT meets her in the classroom at Österlen’s folk high school in Tomelilla in February 2024.
1 / 5 Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT
From university studies, buying an apartment and a good job – to barely being able to afford diapers for the children.
Two years after the Russian invasion, Ukrainian refugees in Sweden still live below a level that is considered tolerable for Swedes.
“Listen to the future” reads the text on the Ukrainian-registered van that is temporarily parked in a parking lot in Scania’s Tomelilla. The car’s owner, Mariia Andriichuk, usually uses it to drive compatriots who need to run errands in Österlen. But the car is broken and the repair is a difficult expense for Mariia Andriichuk, who fled the war.
– This will cost at least SEK 12,000 in repairs, maybe more.
There is a solution. The 33-year-old – who ran an insurance company before she fled her home village in western Ukraine when the fear of attacks from neighboring Belarus became too great – has got a summer job.
– I pick strawberries in the summer, near Ystad. Even now this summer.
“Must think about my child”
The bright classroom slowly fills up as the lunch hour approaches. In today’s lesson, cultural differences and similarities between the home country and Sweden are discussed.
The majority of students in the SFI class at Österlen folk high school are from Ukraine. All women – most have fled with several children and have traumatic memories in their baggage. The homesickness is enormous, as is the gratitude towards Sweden, underlines Mariia Andriichuk, who studies Swedish here.
– For me, Sweden is a wonderful country. But if I had been alone, I would have stayed in Ukraine, but I have to think about my children, she says.
Her Swedish education is paid for by Tomelilla municipality. But for classmate Mariia Zakharenko, who escaped heavily pregnant in the eighth month when the robots struck in Kiev, it looks different. Because she lives in the neighboring municipality of Simrishamn, the language teaching is financed instead via an EU project.
– My municipality says no to SFI. But we want to study further because we want to speak better, she explains in a soon-to-be completely fluent Swedish.
“Milk, eggs and bread”
In March, however, the EU money – and thus the language teaching – ends for Mariia Zakharenko in particular. The classmates who live in Tomelilla, on the other hand, can continue with SFI.
– We need equality, that there are the same rules for everyone!
Two years have passed since the war broke out. Ukrainian refugees have received a temporary residence permit and help with housing, but still live without a Swedish social security number, bank ID or the opportunity to enter the national register.
As they are covered by the EU’s mass displacement directive, the daily allowance for an adult is only SEK 71 – or SEK 2,166 a month. An amount that has not changed since the allowance was introduced in 1994.
– You can perhaps buy milk, eggs and bread, explains Mariia Andriichuk.
Sometimes she receives food vouchers from the municipality. Other than food, there is rarely money.
– Clothes and such are not easy to buy, I have four children.
The daily allowance of SEK 71 is debated and is on the government’s table. Soon there will be a bill which means that Ukrainian refugees can register in Sweden. An opportunity which means that they receive, among other things, a social security number and an establishment allowance of SEK 308 a day instead.
Better in Norway
– They end up in limbo!
SFI teacher Ulrika Freccero is despondent. The conditions differ for her Ukrainian students, solely depending on which municipality they end up in. In just over a month, half of the group will also be forced to stop language teaching, because the EU project will then end.
What happens next for the students? If you don’t have the language and the grades, you won’t get any jobs either, then you can’t make a living, notes Ulrika Freccero and shakes her head.
– Many here talk about friends who moved to Norway. There you get a social security number, the opportunity to study and work.
– Now some are sitting here after two years and thinking about why they chose this country.
New life in Kivik
The school day is drawing to a close and 31-year-old Mariia Zakharenko from Kiev has a bus to fit. The journey home to safe Kivik is a few miles, the bus ticket is currently also paid for by EU money. She lives with her small child with a Swedish family, and thus receives only 61 kroner per day.
– It’s enough for diapers and gruel. The Swedish family I live with shares everything with me. Everything, she says and suddenly smiles widely.
A job in home care in Kivik is soon to come. A great chance for former engineering student Mariia.
– I’m so happy, I get to work with people and I’m learning Swedish, I’m learning to speak. And the co-workers.
– Oh, it will be great!
FACT This applies to Ukrainians who have moved
Ukrainians who fled the war are covered by the EU’s mass migration directive, which applies until March 2025 and involves a time-limited residence permit.
Financial support is given to those who do not receive money in other ways. The current daily allowance is SEK 71 for a single adult, and thereafter on a descending scale for those who share household expenses and for children.
The compensation must be enough for food, clothing, consumables, medicines and medical care, even if the fee for medical care and medicine for refugees is reduced.
However, the government is ready with a bill that allows Ukrainian refugees to register in Sweden, and thus instead receive an establishment allowance of SEK 308 a day.
Just over 60,000 have applied for residence permits in Sweden via protection under the mass flight directive since the war started, the Migration Agency states.
Source: Swedish Migration Agency
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