Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine May Trigger a Refugee Crisis. Here’s How the World Is Preparing
In the hours after Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, Ukrainians began fleeing their homes in the eastern part of the country. Most were headed to other parts of Ukraine, while others began to trickle across international borders into Poland and other Central European nations, a spokesperson at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, told TIME. It was unclear how many people have been displaced so far, the spokesperson said.
Neighboring governments and aid organizations have been preparing for weeks for the potential mass displacement of Ukrainians. Ukraine’s defense minister estimated in December that a Russian-invasion could force between three and five million people to flee their homes.
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If anywhere close to that many people are eventually displaced in this conflict, it would dwarf both the 2015-2016 European refugee crisis, which saw the arrival of roughly a million refugees, mostly fleeing Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, which displaced roughly 1.5 million people, mostly within Ukraine.
Read More: Here’s What We Know So Far About Russia’s Assault on Ukraine
Experts expect the burden of caring for displaced Ukrainians will fall primarily on internal aid organizations and neighboring European countries, with the U.S. providing logistical, financial and personnel support, says Yael Schacher, deputy director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, a refugee advocacy organization. “We can insure that the U.S. does its fair share in handling this refugee flow,” she told TIME.
IOM and other UN staff are currently in Ukraine to provide aid to civilians. “We, along with the UN and the humanitarian community are committed to staying and delivering [aid] in a neutral and impartial manner, prioritizing humanitarian imperatives,” a spokesperson for the IOM tells TIME.
U.S. troops have been deployed to neighboring European countries, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Troops in Poland are working with Polish forces to build centers near the border with Ukraine to begin refugee intakes and provide resources like medical aid, according to The New York Times.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Director Samantha Power has been communicating with Ukrainian-American communities and organizations to share information about contingency plans for humanitarian aid to Ukraine, according to a public statement on Feb. 21. USAID did not respond to TIME’s request for more detail.
The governments of all five countries that share a border with Ukraine—Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova—which have historically opposed refugee resettlement, announced that they will receive Ukrainian refugees. The European Union has also pledged to process Ukrainian refugees who have fled into EU nations.
Read More: ‘We Will Defend Ourselves.’ Photographs of Ukraine Under Attack
“We hope that there will be as little as possible refugees, but we are fully prepared for them and they are welcome,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a public statement on Thursday, adding that the EU will increase financial support to Ukraine, in addition to the 1.2 billion Euros in assistance it announced on Feb. 21 to help stabilize the country. Ukrainians have the right to remain in EU countries for 90 days under specified visa available to them since 2017.
The aftermath of Russia’s 2014 invasion as a model of what’s to come
For many, Russia’s 2014 incursion into the Ukrainian regions of Crimea and Donbas now feels like a dress rehearsal. In the intervening eight years, humanitarian aid groups within Ukraine have formed to address internal displacement and will likely continue to work through the Russian invasion, according to Daphne Panayotatos, an advocate for Europe at Refugees International.
Panayotatos of Refugees International says Poland’s ambivalent stance on refugees can be chalked up to politics and race. “There’s the politics of it, of course, wanting to stand up to Russia the aggressor. It makes a strong political statement to…categorize [Ukrainians] as refugees,” she tells TIME. “But it’s also because Ukrainians are largely white, Christian Europeans, rather than Middle Eastern and African individuals who are seeking safety. There’s an element there that needs to be pointed out.”
In 2015, Slovakia pledged only to accept Christian refugees. Under President Trump, who slashed the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to historic lows, Ukrainians became one of the largest groups to successfully resettle in the U.S. in 2020.