War of Ukraine Ivan from Helsinki fights for his converted wife and 1.5-year-old daughter – “They lived at the Kiev railway station”

One another a separated Ukrainian family can now breathe a moment in Helsinki. Helsinki Ivan has already had his wives converted to Ukraine once Marian and his little daughter Helin until at least May.

However, if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ends by May, Maria and Heli may have to return to Kiev. If the war continued, it would mean that the family would have the opportunity to continue their daily life at home in Helsinki.

March On May 6, 2020, the Ukrainian Maria flew from Kiev to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport for the first time. She was pregnant, and therefore Maria and Ivan, who lived in Helsinki, had finally decided to get married.

Maria and Ivan are Ukrainian citizens from Crimea. The socialization had lasted eleven years.

The child was born at the Women’s Clinic on September 6, 2020, and was married in May in Helsinki. The whole family wanted to live in Finland, but it was not possible.

Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) has converted Maria and a child, now about 1.5 years old, to Helin, Ukraine. The income is not enough to support the family. You should get 2,200 euros a month, but Ivan doesn’t have that much income.

The income claim is based on Migr’s decision, and by police order, Ivan brought his family to Kiev in November.

“It is possible for the parties to have a common family life in their common homeland in Ukraine. The benefit of a common child does not require a derogation from the subsistence requirement and the issue of a residence permit,” Migri explained.

Ivan and Maria say they met in the Crimea in 2009. Before the corona pandemic, Ivan says he visited Maria every year, about a month at a time. Maria has similarly visited Helsinki.

Ivan has lived in Finland since 1996. He obtained a residence permit because he had a job here. Now Ivan also has two children living in Finland from a previous union.

Family has tried his best. With the help of their Helsinki neighbor, they wrote to the Foreign Minister and the President of the Republic. Still, Maria and Heli were converted.

“When there were negative responses to the residence permit applications, they had to return to Ukraine,” Ivan says.

Although the family appealed against Migri’s decisions to the Helsinki Administrative Court, Ivan had to travel to Kiev with his wife and daughter in November. Maria and Heli stayed in a hostel-like apartment with a shared kitchen and no private shower.

“I collected every penny for the apartment. For four days they lived at the Kiev railway station when I didn’t have the money to rent on time, ”Ivan says and the voice vibrates.

In Crimea Maria would have a relative. Before the situation escalated, Maria lived there with her grandmother. But due to the Russian occupation of Crimea that began in 2014, Maria no longer had access to her relatives.

Kiev feels like a stranger.

In February, Maria and Heli flew to Helsinki again. Ivan finds it surprising that he had time to get his family back before Russia launched an attack on Ukraine last Thursday.

Now Maria and Heli have a visa-free permit to stay in Finland for three months. On May 9, he should have left again.

“Because there is a war, there is a chance that my wife and children will be allowed to stay,” Ivan says.

When the wife and child were in Kiev, Ivan says he prayed even though he did not believe in God. Maria, Heli and Ivan had not even believed they could get to their right homeland in the Crimea.

But now even Kiev would not dare to go.

“This is terrible. I waited for them every day and I couldn’t sleep because there was a big threat that the war would start, ”Ivan says.

Sodan Migri announced that he was suspending the deportation of people to Ukraine. For Maria and Hel, however, the situation is more complicated because they have already been turned around.

“If a decision has already been made, the police will be responsible for enforcing the removal. Of course, the police also take into account the changes in the situation, ”says the head of the area of ​​responsibility Kaj Swanljung From the Migrant Permit and Citizenship Unit.

He does not take a position on an individual case but evaluates practices at a general level. In the case of Maria and Hel, despite the conversion, negative decisions on residence permits have been appealed to the Helsinki Administrative Court. So their process is in progress.

The family names have been changed so that they do not get into trouble in Ukraine.