“My blood is Algerian, but my heart is Ukrainian.” Why foreign students don’t leave Ukraine during the war

"I realized I couldn't just say goodbye"

“This is my home. I do not think anyone can easily leave their home. So I said: ‘I will stay here. My friends live here’,” Dalia explains why she remained in Ukraine in February 2022.

Dalia speaks Ukrainian, reads the poetry of Lesya Ukrainka, and, in the five years she has lived in Ukraine, has never left the country. She plans to stay here forever and work as a therapist. In Algeria, she worked as a biologist and genetics specialist but wanted to become a doctor. In her homeland, the number of spots in educational institutions is limited. Acquaintances told her about Ukraine and studying there. She googled it and came across an advertisement for Bohomolets University.

After February 24, 2022, the young woman left Kyiv for only a month as the university provided dormitory housing in Uzhhorod. Dalia has not seen her family for five years. There are no flights out of Ukraine, and to get to Poland, for example, she needs a visa. So she keeps in touch with relatives through messengers. Moreover, they are scattered around the world: her older sister lives in the United States, her twin brother in France. Only her parents remained in Algeria: “We even eat together and video call as if we are next to each other.”

Dalia read on Telegram about anti-migration rallies in the center of the Ukrainian capital that took place in May. But she says she has not encountered discrimination. She does not even consider herself a foreigner:

“My blood is Algerian, but in my heart I am Ukrainian.”

How foreigners enter Ukrainian universities now

Foreign students wishing to study in Ukraine must first receive an invitation from a university. Since April 1, 2025, an electronic interagency system has been in place. Through it, a prospective student submits an application. University representatives, the migration service, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and border guards review it.

People facing criminal proceedings will be denied an invitation. If a candidate has committed minor violations — for example, has not paid a speeding fine — the invitation will be issued only after the debt is paid.

Decisions on candidate invitations are usually made within 30 days. For citizens of countries with migration risks — there are about 70 such countries (mainly in Asia and Africa, including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Ethiopia) — the procedure is more complicated: their applications receive closer scrutiny, and a Security Service of Ukraine check, which is decisive, takes place.

During the check, authorities also screen out those who most likely want to come to Ukraine not to study but to transit to European Union countries.

For example, if a 40-year-old person wants to enroll only in the preparatory department, it raises suspicions because that program is cheaper than a full-fledged first-year study.

The preparatory department is essentially language and academic preparation for admission. Foreign students spend 10 months studying the language, adapting, and taking the subjects required for further admission.

The cost for foreigners ranges from 134,000 to 182,000 hryvnias ($3,014-4,094) per year, depending on the language of instruction (Ukrainian or English), specialty, and year of study. The preparatory department costs more than 53,000 hryvnias ($1,192).

Oksana Parfyonova, director of the Center for Work with Foreign Students at Bohomolets University, notes that before the full-scale war, many Iranians came to study, especially future dentists — in some families, there was a clan tradition of studying specifically at Bohomolets University.

But after Iran began helping Russia, the attitude toward new applications from that country changed. Invitations are no longer issued to them. At the same time, Iranian students already studying in Ukraine and holding residence permits valid for the duration of their studies were able to extend them.

Invitations are not issued to Russians or to those foreigners who have lived in or visited Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

There is no strict deadline for arrival in Ukraine for applicants who have received invitations. If a student wants to study in person, it is advisable to arrive by September 1, but the admissions campaign lasts longer — until November 1, and the winter intake until March. For those who cannot cross the border for some reason, the university maintains a mixed form of study.

Parfyonova says that representatives of educational institutions (not only Bohomolets University) go to the border to pick up students.

“The organization that issues the invitation bears responsibility for the person it invited to study. The main task is to ensure that this person does not simply leave the country as a transit country for further travel to Europe,” Parfyonova explains.

The university provides foreigners with full support, from processing migration documents to settling in dormitories with shelters. It also helps with adaptation, particularly in organizing cultural events.

Parfyonova is convinced that the May wave of anti-migration sentiment in Ukrainian social networks is unlikely to significantly affect foreigners’ desire to study in Ukraine. Those who want to come will still do so because Ukrainian medical education appeals to them for its price-to-quality ratio.

“Everything I have received in life, I received here”

Azerbaijani Zakir has lived in Ukraine for almost 11 years. He is now completing his internship in surgery.

“I wanted to leave my country and study abroad. In addition, I had many acquaintances who studied here at Bohomolets. That is why I already knew what the education and training were like here,” Zakir says in Ukrainian.

He works as a surgical intern at the university clinic. He says education in Ukraine is cheaper than in Azerbaijan. And doctors’ salaries are roughly the same. Surgeons receive about $650 plus bonuses. His parents and younger brother live in Baku. After the full-scale war began, they asked him to return, but Zakir decided to stay in Kyiv.

“Everything I have received in life, I received here. I became a doctor here,” he says. “I believe I should stay here, help doctors, and assist. We receive a great many soldiers. For me, this is also a valuable experience. My relatives still tell me to come back. They worry a lot, call every day, and ask if everything is all right.”

Zakir has not encountered anti-migration sentiments or aggression in Ukraine.

“There is much less racism in Ukraine than in Europe. I have been to various European countries, and you feel it there. At the university, during our practice, neither doctors nor patients pay attention to whether you are a foreigner. They do not care. If you have the desire to gain knowledge and clinical experience, that is the main thing.”

Currently, 20,000 foreigners study at various Ukrainian universities. Before 2022, there were 84,000.