UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 7, 2015. Around a quarter of working-age refugees from Ukraine haven’t been able to find a job in Sverdlovsk Region yet, head of Russia-Ukraine Friendship House, an NGO, Petr Shcherbina, said at a press conference.

‘There are currently over 8,500 Ukrainian refugees in the area. Only about 500, mostly the elderly and the disabled, are now staying at temporary shelters. Some 6,000 people of working age are on the lookout for jobs, and around 75% of them have found one,’ he said.

Head of Nelegalov.net Natalya Tagiltseva, these data account for all those who are officially employed, yet quite a few people are working illegally.

‘Employers are afraid of officially taking on people with shelter IDs, even though the current legislation states this is a perfectly good work permit. If local companies were aware of this, many displaced person problems could have been avoided,’ she said.