Ukrainian refugees continue to enter Norway from Russia in the north
Several hundred Ukrainian citizens, maybe as many as 500, have come to Norway at the Storskog checkpoint since Russia launched its war of aggression in February 2022.
You would think that traveling through Russia would be a bad route when the aim is to seek protection from Russian aggressors. However, several hundred have chosen exactly that route.
Norway’s National police immigration Service (NPIS) doesn’t have exact numbers.
“We don’t registre statistics on entry points for Ukrainians asking for temporary protection,” said Cecilie Johansen, head of communications with NPIS.
Neither does the Directorate of Immigration have the exact number from Storskog. Sources in the immigration service tell the Barents Observer that several hundred have arrived Norway at Storskog since 2022. Up to 500, another source estimates.
Ukrainian citizens travelling via the Murmansk region continue to enter Norway in the north. Several more have arrived this autumn.
Data published by the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) shows that the total number of Ukrainians seeking collective protection in Norway after February 24, 2022 passed 100,000 this week. 97,605 of them are granted protection. The figures do not include Ukrainians not eligible for collective protection. Those are registered as asylum seekers.
The number of Ukrainians living in Russia is difficult to pinpoint, as Russian statistics tend to include people forced to change citizenship in occupied territories, including Crimea and parts of Lukhansk and Donetsk Oblasts since 2014 and parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts since 2022. At least 1,2 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded in Russia since 2022, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In war-zone territories, Russian forces run so-called filtration camps. Here, Ukrainian citizens are registered and interrogated before being transferred to Russia. How many that are relocated, sometimes as part of forced population transfers, cannot be independently verified.
While independent media report about widespread torture, starvation and other grave human rights violations in such filtration camps, the Russian government calls the deportations “evacuations”.
Ukrainians granted temporary protections in Europe was in September 2025 the highest in two years, up 49% from August, according to Eurostat.
The increase follows the adoption by authorities in Kyiv in August of a decree giving men aged 18 to 22 the right to leave Ukraine without hindrance. Previously, the majority were pensioners, women and children. Recently, a large number of men under 22 have started to come.
The biggest numbers of Ukrainian refugees in Europe are found Poland and Germany. At the start of October 2025, Germany had recorded nearly 1,3 million individuals granted temporary protection since February 2022. Poland had received just over one million.
About 300,000 Ukrainian refugees have been granted temporary residence in the Nordics, with Norway counting for the highest numbers.
5,88 million refugees from Ukraine are recorded globally, according to the UNHCR statistics.
Unlike Finland is Norway's border with Russia still open for travellers.
