The Temporary Protection Directive allows you to return voluntarily and provides measures that are applicable after the temporary protection period has expired. If you need to return to Ukraine for a short time, for example to visit family, collect documents or rescue family members, you do not lose your temporary protection status. Short visits to Ukraine should not be considered by EU countries as a decision to return voluntarily before the expiry of temporary protection. This means that a short trip to Ukraine should not lead to the cancellation of the residence permit and the loss of the rights associated with this status.

The shortest route from Bulgaria to Ukraine passes through Romania. The Embassy of Ukraine in Bulgaria has published information (see here) that Ukrainians can travel home through Romania with any valid national identity document. For humanitarian reasons, the Romanian Border Police allows Ukrainian citizens who left Ukraine after February 24, 2022, to cross the Romanian border for transit to Ukraine without a valid document for travel abroad (foreign passport) and without a visa, if they present at the border of entry from Bulgaria in Romania one of the following other valid documents:

• Passport of a senior citizen of Ukraine;
• Passport of a citizen of Ukraine with an electronic medium (identity card);
• Non-biometric passport of a citizen of Ukraine for travel abroad (including a note on extension of validity);
• Birth certificate;
• Children whose data is entered in the passport of one of the parents.

Citizens of Ukraine who do not have any of the above documents are allowed by the Romanian authorities to enter Romania for transit to Ukraine – directly or via Moldova – only on the basis of the child’s usual travel document, or on the basis of a return certificate, issued by the Embassy of Ukraine in Bulgaria (i.e. passport), including an old sample, without the need for a visa or other authorization.