Ukraine is experiencing a wave of panic over supposed mass migration from South Asia, driven largely by misinformation, AI generated fakes, and fringe right wing groups. Despite claims of an “invasion,” official data shows no significant influx of foreign workers. With a severe labor shortage and pe
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Even the most cursory glance at recent Ukrainian social media posts will reveal a perfect storm around the “threat of mass immigration” by workers from South Asia.
The background to this sense of panic may be various statements by Ukrainian officials about the country’s short-term need for hundreds of thousands of migrant workers and moves towards introducing a law to simplify visa processes for these individuals.
The justification for such plans seems clear enough: so many lives lost, so many men of working age in the army, or focused on war-related production, and hundreds of thousands of people whose battle injuries restrict the kinds of work they can do.
Then there are the internal fugitives. According to official figures, approximately two million Ukrainians are currently hiding from the army. While they remain shut up in their apartments or houses, the government is stepping up the fight against them, discussing freezing some of their bank accounts and blocking their driver’s licenses. But these internal fugitives usually receive support from family and friends, and the number is not decreasing.
Obviously, to survive, Ukraine’s economy needs a labor force, and using migrant workers is an obvious way forward. The question is how to communicate with the public about this. Unfortunately, perceptions of the issue have been formed, not by sober official statements, but by talk in the mass media and social media that seems designed to convince Ukrainians that hundreds of thousands of migrants have already arrived and settled in the country.
Kyiv Post investigates a sudden wave of anti-migrant hysteria spreading across Ukrainian social media and finds strong signs of a coordinated Russian disinformation campaign aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society. Despite widespread fears, the actual number of labor migrants in Ukraine remains very small, while experts say the panic is driven largely by wartime trauma, demographic anxiety, and long-term social pressures. At the same time, researchers warn that Ukraine’s severe population decline and labor shortages may eventually force the country to rely on immigration after the war.
Ukrainians caught up in this media frenzy post downright racist memes and fakes on social media, including images, clearly generated by AI, of Indian migrants helping Ukrainian police and military enlistment officers forcibly mobilize Ukrainian men on the streets of cities and villages. Kyiv Post reported on this wave of anti-migrant “panic” only last month.
While the media storm has not affected people’s behavior on the street, calls for public protests against migrants did appear on social media, and on May 23, a rally against labor migration took place in Kyiv, organized by several little-known organizations, such as White Sector, Right Youth, Avangard, and the more known Brotherhood of Dmytro Korchynsky.
Several dozen young people stood with placards bearing slogans such as “Ukraine for Ukrainians,” “For a White Ukraine,” and “Get Out of Ukraine, Ugly Migrant!”
Passersby in central Kyiv paid little attention to the demonstration, but photos of its participants and placards once again filled Ukrainian Facebook and Instagram accounts. Furthermore, two dozen articles and reports on the rally appeared in Ukrainian media.
During the same period, a similar protest was held in Lviv. Again, while attendance was low, the protest attracted plenty of attention from local media. Its co-organizer and one of the main speakers was Nicolas Amber, a French citizen who recently settled in Lviv.
Amber speaks Ukrainian fluently and wears a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt. “Please don’t make the same mistakes we made in France,” he told journalists during the protest. “I’m not saying that a mass influx of migrants is already happening. I’m saying: let’s stop this process before it’s too late!”
Amber, who first drew the attention of Ukrainian media as an example of a foreigner who fell in love with Ukrainian history and the language before falling in love with a Ukrainian woman and marrying her, is becoming increasingly popular among right-wing youths as one of the most vocal advocates for “traditional values”. He is against abortion and LGBT rights and is now focused on the fight against future labor migrants.
One striking point from Amber’s biography is the fact that, in 2018, he completed a course in “international project management” at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. At the time, he readily posed for photos in front of the Russian flag.
In 2021, as he has stated in many interviews, Amber became a “Ukrainophile”. His wife, Yulia Chubareva, is also a very active public figure and shares his views on labor migration.
In reality, as Amber admitted, there is currently no mass influx of migrant workers into Ukraine. In the first three months of 2026, the State Migration Service issued only 675 migration permits to foreign citizens, revoked 445 existing permits, and identified 742 illegal migrants, who are now awaiting deportation.
These are hardly the kind of statistics that would strike alarm into anyone’s heart, but these figures are not reported by those who, out of political expediency or because of other motives, have joined the fight against labor migration and are attempting to sow fear of foreign workers in Ukrainian society.
Many Ukrainians appreciate that the economy cannot survive without foreign workers, and the owners of large construction companies, such as Blago Building Contractors, are already trying to hire foreign construction workers, undertaking to obtain all the necessary permits for them. Currently, this process is difficult and time-consuming.
Bill No. 14211, which is expected to be considered by the Ukrainian parliament soon, will, if approved, create mechanisms for rapid access to the Ukrainian labor market for foreigners. It will also simplify and expedite the process of obtaining temporary residence permits.
It is unfortunate that the government has so far poorly explained the issue and possible solutions to the public, while small right-wing radical groups are actively exploiting the subject to find new supporters.
If we don’t begin to counter this wave of xenophobia now, in the future, when foreign workers actually appear in Ukraine in larger numbers, we could face conflicts based on racial hatred.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.
