Russian propagandists claim that over 99% of Ukrainians who left the occupied territories are returning due to their inability to settle in the territory controlled by Ukraine. The propagandists write that these figures were allegedly provided by Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov, citing People's Deputy Maksym Tkachenko.

However, this information is not true. This is reported by the VoxCheck project. First of all, on Yurii Butusov's pages on social networks there is no post with a link to the words of People's Deputy Maksym Tkachenko. However, on November 24, 2024, in an interview with Ukrinform, Tkachenko commented on the return of internally displaced persons. Then his words were quoted by the media outlet Censor.NET, where Butusov is the editor-in-chief.

In an interview, Tkachenko said:

“Already about 150 thousand internally displaced persons have returned to the temporarily occupied territories. For example, according to available data, 200 thousand Mariupol residents left their city, fleeing the war that Russia brought to our land. At the same time, every third of them returned home, to Mariupol, to the occupation. According to estimates, this is approximately 67-70 thousand people”.

He noted that people decided to leave because they did not receive proper assistance from the state: housing, social support, compensation, and work.

However, the day after the interview was published, Tkachenko denied his statement:

“There is no such data. It was my unfounded and emotional assumption”.

He clarified that there are individual cases when Ukrainians go to the regions occupied by Russia for various reasons. However, we are not talking about hundreds or even tens of thousands, because “general verified statistics cannot even theoretically exist”.

It is worth noting that in this interview the MP did not mention 99% of internally displaced persons who allegedly returned to the occupation. Presumably, the creators of this fake twisted the words of the former Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, Heorhii Tuka. On November 24, 2024, on the air of Espresso, he commented on the departure of Ukrainians to uncontrolled territories:

“I have been observing the process of refugees returning to the temporarily occupied territories since 2015, when I headed the Luhansk Military Administration and then worked in the ministry. I have repeatedly communicated with people and I do not even have any hints of condemning these people. I do not know a single person who would return to the TOT of their own free will. 99% of people return because they were unable to establish a normal life in the territories controlled by Ukraine”.

Later, the editorial staff of Espresso corrected the headline. It was like this:  “Almost 99% of refugees are returning to the occupied territories because they could not establish a normal life in the controlled part of Ukraine, former Deputy Minister for TOT Tuka”, and now - “almost 99% of refugees with whom I spoke are returning to the occupied territories because they could not establish a normal life in the controlled part of Ukraine, Tuka”.

After all, it was only about the people the former employee communicated with, not 99% of internally displaced persons throughout Ukraine. That is, this is his personal assessment, not a calculation based on real statistics.

Previously, we analyzed Russian manipulation, saying that 77% of Ukrainians are ready to give up the occupied territories.