Dynamic Coordination of Internal Displacement: Return and Integration Cases in Ukraine and Georgia

The conflict-related internal displacement in Ukraine since 2014, after the armed combats with Russian military forces backing the separatist administrations, as well as the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation have not been state-organized. They imply a range of personal choices depending on civil positions and destinations for resettlement; therefore, the affected persons get involved in the consequent practical discourses and decision-making processes. Based on the legislative acts and the international reports on internal displacement, the internal displacement due to the current hybrid war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is compared with the first Russia-backed separatist conflicts after the collapse of the USSR—the wars in South Ossetia, in 1992, and in Abkhazia, in 2008. The internal displacement situations have been reviewed through their dynamic coordination patterns, with regard to non-equilibrium transitions, fluctuations, and adaptations triggered on the systemic, community, and personal levels, as well as to the expected durable solutions: integration, return, temporary resettlement. Therefore, we suggest, for further discussion, the patterns of bistability—for the internal displacement due to the Russo-Georgian wars of 1992 and 2008, characterized by an overfocus, in the practical discourses, on the return of the internally displaced persons (IDP), and metastability—for the conflict-related internal displacement in Ukraine, with both the return and local integration solutions creating the quasi-stable system.