Anastasia on challenges facing Ukrainian refugees in Sweden

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022, around 70,000 Ukrainians have fled to Sweden.

Language barriers, difficulty in accessing medical and psychological care, and dealing with Swedish bureaucracy have been some of the issues they have faced, with many later choosing to leave Sweden, some back to Ukraine and some to other countries.

Anastasia Bilenko, who has lived on the island of Gotland since March 2022 initially lived in refugee housing for almost two years: ”It is really, really long if you take people from different social layers and different parts of Ukraine. There were a lot of fights, both verbal and physical, unfortunately.”