Oleksandr Zbytskyi from the southern city of Odessa has lived in the United Kingdom with his wife and son since August 2022, and now he has been denied asylum.
It was really unexpected to get a rejection . . . Who is willing to take their child back to the country where there is a full-scale war, he says to the newspaper.
Ukrainians can live in the country for 18 months under the temporary visa program. But in January this year, the UK's Home Office updated its guidelines where the capital Kyiv and western Ukraine are considered "generally safe". Since then, Halyna Semchak, a lawyer at the firm Sterling Law, has noticed that fewer asylum cases have been approved.
Legally, these decisions are deeply disturbing. They disregard the complex reality on the ground and fail to take into account individual circumstances in a meaningful way, she says.
In the rejections, it often states that their situation does not meet the rules of the Refugee Convention since they can move to safer parts of Ukraine. There should be access to public services, and opportunities for help from UNHCR and local organizations.
