Ilya Kvitka is a tall, quietly-spoken 15-year-old Ukrainian boy from Kyiv who arrived in Belgium with his mother and younger brother at the beginning of April. Despite spending just over six months in his newly adopted country, he is adamant that he never wants to leave.
"I like Belgium," he told The Brussels Times near his family's two-room apartment in Tervuren, near Brussels. "I want to go to university here. I want to stay here. To live here. I do not want to go back to Ukraine."
Even if the war ends? I ask him. "Yes. Even if the war ends."
Ilya Kvitka in Kyiv before the war. Credit: Viktoria Kvitka.
Similar sentiments were shared by another Ukrainian refugee, Ilya Vereshchaka, whom The Brussels Times spoke to. He, too, wants to stay in Belgium and, one day, receive a Belgian passport.
"There are more possibilities here," said the diminutive 14-year-old from Izyum, in eastern Ukraine. "There are more things you can do. More jobs. More career opportunities. More stability."
Such a perspective is not difficult to understand: Ilya V spent the majority of his childhood just a stone's throw from the frontlines of a brutal civil war in his country's eastern region — one that had already claimed the lives of over 14,000 people by the time Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February.
Ilya V is particularly effusive in his praise for Belgium's education system.
"In Ukraine, the teachers tell you exactly what you need to study," he says. "They tell you that you must study and write in a certain, very specific way. There isn't so much room to be creative. Here, they make you feel more genuinely interested in the subject."
Ilya V now attends a Flemish school, where he has been assigned to a special 'catch up' class to learn Dutch. The vast majority of children in these classes, he tells me, are also Ukrainian — and they, too, nearly all want to stay.
"They also like it here," he says. "They also don't want to go back."
Even if the war ends? I repeat my question. "Yes. Of course, I still want to go back to Ukraine to visit my friends and my grandparents. But I don't want to go back there permanently. Even if the war ends."
Ilya Vereshchaka (in the red shirt, second from the left) at his school in Izyum, prior to Russia's invasion. Credit: Vitaly Vereshchaka.
When asking Ilya K whether he has a similar impression from his interactions with other Ukrainian refugees at his French-speaking school. He confirms that, of those he has met, nearly all of them also want to stay.
Their mutual friend, Maxim Volkov, however, does not. I ask him why.
"My family is still in Dnipro [in south-eastern Ukraine]," he explains. "My father, my grandparents, and my friends. I miss them."
Ilya K interjects. "Maxim wants to go back because he only came here with his mother," he explains. "My father arrived in Belgium a month and a half ago, which is a big reason why I also don't want to leave. And Ilya V's father was also able to leave Ukraine with his family. [All Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 with fewer than three children must receive special dispensation to leave the country.] But Maxim is only here with his mother."
I ask Maxim directly: If your family in Ukraine were able to come to Belgium, would you still want to go back to Ukraine? "No," he says simply.
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These attitudes should not, of course, be construed as necessarily representative of the attitudes of all Ukrainians refugees — or even, for that matter, those Ukrainian children based in Belgium. Indeed, both Ukrainian and U.N. polls consistently find that the vast majority of Ukrainians do want to return to their country once the war ends; evidence corroborated by the fact that, since the start of the conflict, millions of Ukrainians have already returned home.
Credit: Belga / James Arthur Gekiere
Nevertheless, these sentiments could, perhaps, be interpreted as an indication that many Ukrainian children's attitudes towards Belgium are beginning to mirror those shared by many of the country's immigrants: over time, they grow to love their adopted home.
"People are very nice in this country," says Ilya K. "It is cool that there are a lot of languages, a lot of cultures in this country."
Isn’t this also true in Ukraine? I ask. "Yes, but it is even more true here. I also like that the weather changes quite quickly. It's unpredictable."
Some people hate that, I venture. He smiles."Well, I don't," he says.
