Kiev, 12 November 2023 (dpa/MIA) - About 5 million people in Ukraine have been forced to move away from their homes to other parts of the country due to years of Russian attacks, according to official figures.

The deputy prime minister responsible for refugee issues, Iryna Vereshchuk, said on Ukrainian television news that there were 4.9 million registered internally displaced persons.

Some 3.6 million people had fled within Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, she said.

Before the invasion, the years of fighting in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine had already caused more than 1 million people to be internally displaced since 2014.

Moscow-controlled forces had at that time taken control of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

There has no been significant movement of people recently, Vereshchuk said, adding that some evacuees had returned to their homes in the August to November period.

This matches developments in the military situation on the ground, where the fronts in the east and south have remained mostly unchanged.

According to the latest figures from the UN, about 6.2 million Ukrainians have fled abroad either temporarily or permanently.

Before the war began in 2022, Ukraine had a population of around 41.4 million.

Photo: MIA archive