At the end of March 2025, Cyprus was one of the EU’s member states with the highest ratio of people who received temporary protection status after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to data released by Eurostat.
On 31 March 2025, slightly more than 4.26 million non-EU citizens who fled Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine had temporary protection status in the EU.
Compared with the population of each EU country, the highest ratio of temporary protection beneficiaries per thousand people were observed in Czechia (33.5), Poland (27.2) and Latvia (26.4), whereas the corresponding figure at the EU level was 9.5 per thousand people.
At the end of March, Cyprus had a total of 23,090 temporary protection beneficiaries that have fled Ukraine due to Russia’s invasion. The ratio for Cyprus was particularly high, with the country being in sixth place with 23.9 persons per thousand inhabitants.
In absolute numbers, the EU countries hosting the highest number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine were Germany (1,184,890 people; 27.8% of the EU total), Poland (997,120; 23.4%) and Czechia (365,055; 8.6%).
Compared with the end of February 2025, the total number of people under temporary protection in the EU at the end of March decreased by 45,455 (-1.1%). The largest decreases were recorded in Czechia (-32,695; -8.2%), Sweden (-20,505; -43.2%) and Lithuania (-4,845; -9.9%). These decreases are to a large extent explained by temporary protection statuses ending in March 2025.
The number of persons under temporary protection increased in 18 EU countries with the largest absolute increases observed in Germany (+7 090; +0.6%), Poland (+2 330, +0.2%) and Spain (+2 275; +1.0%). Cyprus was one of the countries where the numbers remained relatively stable.
On 31 March 2025, Ukrainian citizens represented over 98.4% of the beneficiaries of temporary protection in the EU. Adult women made up 44.7% of the beneficiaries, minors accounted for 31.7% and adult men comprised 23.6% of the total.
Eurostat’s data refers to the temporary protection status based on the Council Implementing Decision 2022/382 of 4 March 2022. On 25 June 2024, the European Council adopted the decision to extend temporary protection for refugees from Ukraine to 4 March 2026.
( Source : CNA )
