Planning for the future
The Dodomu platform, currently in beta, provides a personalized roadmap for Ukrainians living abroad who consider returning home. Users complete a short questionnaire to receive information on documents, employment, housing, health care, and social support. This tool, called "Homewards," functions without any Ukrainian state budget funds. The YOUA project, "Shaping New Paths, Building Ukraine’s Future," developed the platform for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). GIZ implements this project in cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity. The platform helps people understand their options whether they plan to move next month or next year. The creators built the platform on the principle that a plan should fit the person making the decision. The project supports informed return decisions as it improves access to reliable information and strengthens the capacity of Ukrainian national institutions and local communities to receive returning citizens and facilitate sustainable reintegration for those who return. The creators invite Ukrainians abroad to test key features and report technical issues to help shape the tool. Users can also share any concerns that still need to be resolved before they return.
Information for local resettlement
The platform focuses on individual communities rather than a single national overview. It currently provides profiles for 154 communities across Ukraine, providing local information on housing, jobs, health care, education, and available services. More communities will join as the platform develops. Decisions about returning depend on access to housing and reliable information, according to the International Organization for Migration. Research by the charitable foundation Rokada suggests that the success of a return depends on local conditions, particularly practical support in the place of settlement. Recent research by UNHCR and the OECD points to a shift where people question what returning would actually require rather than simply whether they will come back. Many Ukrainians abroad have spent time working toward stability in host countries, yet they continue to imagine what their lives in Ukraine might look like. Participation in the platform and its activities is entirely voluntary for people considering return or those who have already decided to return.
The volatile reality of movement
The Dodomu platform provides essential planning tools, but the reality of movement remains unpredictable. The practicalities of movement appear much more volatile in places like Oleshky, where 25 buses with a capacity for 750 passengers and ambulances prepared to evacuate residents on October 30. These convoys split in Armiansk, with some heading toward Russia and others toward Ukrainian-controlled territory, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials. While Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman, coordinated the mission, volunteer Kseniia Arkhipova claimed that Russia violated the agreement by starting the evacuation early. Residents in Oleshky face severe shortages of food, water, and electricity, while a source speaking to the Kyiv Independent said that Russian forces told patients at the only functioning hospital they would face filtration if they left. Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova said that buses reached Armiansk to split into two convoys. David Arakhamia, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, said the Ukrainian delegation traveled to Oleshky via Anapa in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai and then via Belarus. Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi initially stated that 527 residents of Oleshky planned to travel to Ukrainian-controlled territory, but he later clarified that he shared that figure by mistake and that no exact numbers were available. The ceasefire in the area had been in effect for 80 hours by 11:30 a.m. on October 30, according to Lubinets. This ceasefire occurred after the intervention of Melania Trump. Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported that one person was injured by the explosion of a Russian mine on October 29.
