Ukrainian refugees build a life in Arles

Text and photos by Ash Thomas

Serhii Zelinskyi, a Ukrainian immigrant to France, still has a video of his burning home in Kyiv. He and his family managed to escape after the first bomb hit their home in 2022; a second bomb destroyed their entire street. 

When they first arrived in Nice, their daughter, Mariia, would hide when she heard the Nice Midday Cannon, which is fired every day at noon, thinking it was a Russian bomb. So nearly a year after arriving in France, they moved to Arles.

“When we arrived in France, I was in a physical and moral state of great difficulty, and we survived thanks to the support that we got from the French people,” said Zelinskyi.

In the wake of the war with Russia, Ukrainian refugees fled to nearby European countries, including France, and a significant number of Ukrainians settled in Arles. About 115,000 Ukrainian refugees had come to France by February 2022, according to Cour des comptes, France’s audit institution. 

But since then, many have returned to Ukraine or gone to other countries. By July 2025, the official number of Ukrainian refugees living in France was 64,725. France is one of several countries in central Europe that has taken in refugees from the war. Ukrainian refugees were able to access work permits, health care and an asylum seeker allowance under the French government’s temporary protection status, which has been extended until March 2026.

Ukraine en Provence, an organization created to support Ukrainian refugees in Arles, was based in Arles at the Maison de la Vie Associative while it was active. Some Ukrainians took French and English classes at Arles à la carte, a language school (and co-sponsor of The Arles Project), and some would meet at the Office of Tourism in Arles. However, many Ukrainians, including the founder of Ukraine en Provence (Ukraine in Provence), opted to return to their home country despite the danger of the war.

“I think it’s because of the different life between Ukraine and France; not all people can adapt,” said Anna Lebeva, a Ukrainian immigrant living in Tarascon, France. “Maybe they miss their family, or maybe they have work already in Ukraine, and they prefer to go back to their normal daily life than create a new life from zero.”

Serhii Zelinskyi and Tetiana Zelinska are no strangers to the difficulties of immigrating to France.

“The main problem was that it took a very long time to get the long-stay visa,” said Zelinskyi.

Zelinskyi described the bureaucratic challenges of getting long-stay visas. He credits the SOS group ACT 13 with helping his family take care of the paperwork needed to stay in France, enroll their daughter in school, and access their necessary disability benefits.

“France and the French people have treated us with absolute equality, like brothers, and they’ve given us a great freedom to not only live, but develop ourselves, enrich our cultural knowledge without losing contact with our home country,” said Zelinskyi.

Other Ukrainians who have resettled in Arles and France have found work or study opportunities. Anna Lebeva, who lived in Ukraine for the first 16 years of her life, has studied art at École supérieure d’Art d’Avignon (Avignon College of Fine Arts) for the past three years. Her mother, Olga Ivanova, works as a cook at Edú, a restaurant in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. 

Ivanova was able to get the job through classes given by the Arles location of Des Étoiles et des femmes (Women and Stars), an organization dedicated to helping women obtain jobs in the restaurant industry. She now works in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Ivanova lived in Zaporizhzhia, where Russia launched a military occupation at the beginning of the war, and fled in February 2022. Ivanova and her two daughters first fled to Romania, with plans to travel to Germany, where some of their other Ukrainian friends lived, until a friend of her husband’s told her that a woman living alone in Tarascon, near Arles, wanted to take in a Ukrainian family, as long as they did not have boys. Ivanova and her daughters fit the bill perfectly.

Ivanova said that most Ukrainian refugees are women and children, as men stayed behind to fight in the war. Many refugees missed their families and returned to be with them. She also said that life in France for the Ukrainian refugees was more difficult than in places like Germany, which provided constant support to refugees. According to Ivanova, she eventually had to start paying rent in France after she started working. 

But despite the challenges, Ivanova and her daughters have settled in France for three years, and, for the time being, they consider their future to be in France. Lebeva, who calls her grandparents in Ukraine almost every day, considers both France and Ukraine to be her home.

Alina Kolpikova, another Ukrainian refugee who resettled in Arles, arrived in France in 2022. In 2024, she completed a professional development session at  Arles à la carte. Though currently on a break from work, Kolpikova is constantly listening to recordings in French to improve her knowledge of the language.

“I want to speak French very, very, very well,” said Kolpikova, while smiling brightly. “I really enjoyed working as a family psychologist in Ukraine …and so in France, I would like to maybe work with families and children.” 

The language barrier is another reason why some Ukrainians did not end up staying in France, but the ones who have are working on learning French. 

“It’s always like a job not to forget what you already learned, to practice a lot and listen,” said Lebeva. “People are nice in school; they always help me if I don’t understand something.”

Even though many Ukrainian refugees ended up leaving Arles, some have stayed to build new lives in France.

“We decided to stay in France for all our lives,” said Ivanova. “We do everything to stay.”

“For the moment, I try to study and to continue studying even after I finish university,” said Lebeva. “So for now, I want to stay.”

“It’s difficult because Ukraine is my country, but my son told me to stay in France,” said Kolpikova. Her son died in the war, but he had a dream to visit France, which led to Kolipkova’s decision to come to France over other countries.

The Zelinskyis also plan to stay in France. Due to Serhii’s health issues, it’s not possible to return to Ukraine. Their 10-year-old daughter, Mariia, has grown up in France and speaks French without a trace of an accent.

“The French motto is important to [us]: freedom, equality and fraternity,” said Zelinskyi. “We’ve really been able to feel this motto living in France.”

Katie Thornton served as the interpreter for this story.