Top 3 YouTube Channels by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Documenting Their New Lives in Ukrainian Villages
Some of these channels now have subscriber counts and video views comparable to — or even exceeding — those of established Ukrainian media outlets.
Three Channels — Three Voices of Displacement
What unites them?
- Displacement experience — all creators relocated from occupied or frontline areas.
- Female perspective — all channels are run by women who share everyday life, faith, creativity, and adaptation.
- Village as a new home — each chose rural life as a path to recovery.
- Ukrainian-language content — with a strong focus on language, culture, and identity.
1. Olenka the Displaced
“I’m Olenka, and I’m a displaced person. I was — until I bought a house in a village,” she writes in her channel description. She moved to the Cherkasy region.
- Launch: Autumn 2023
- Subscribers: 28.2K
- Videos: 100+
- Themes: renovation, rural life, design
Top videos:
- A Year of Renovating a Village House — 250K+ views
- We Moved: Fridge and Cat — 72K views
- How We Earn for Renovation — 49K views
2. Internally Displaced
“A channel about building a new life in a Ukrainian village. A modular home instead of an old hut. Pros, cons, hidden pitfalls,” reads the description.
The first video explains: “We won’t restore the old house — instead of a clay hut, we’re gradually building a modular home.”
- Launch: January 2024
- Subscribers: 22.9K
- Videos: 45
- Themes: modular housing, daily life, ecology, Ukrainian-language content
Top videos:
- Household Waste in the Village — 28K+ views
- Ukrainian YouTube: Audience, Hate, Language — 17K views
- Remote Work and Income — 12K views
3. Life with Faith
“Life from scratch for displaced people from Zaporizhzhia — buying and setting up a village house in Khmelnytskyi region,” says the channel by Nadia from Melitopol.
- Launch: February 2025
- Subscribers: 17.7K
- Videos: 121
- Themes: rural life, animals, renovation
Top videos:
- Tour of the New Home — 334K views
- Long Search and Purchase for $1,500 — 138K views
- Life Before the Full-Scale War — 46K views
Monetization Potential
According to Copilot, a YouTube channel in Ukraine with around 10K subscribers can earn approximately $100–$500+ per month from ads.
IDP Statistics
As of June 2025:
- 4.59 million internally displaced persons registered in Ukraine
- Over 7 million Ukrainians abroad, including 5.6 million refugees, with 5.1 million in Europe
