How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II
Your life from one day to the other changes completely. You move out of your familiar background where you have your friends, you have your family, you have your job, you have the local supermarket. You also have all those hopes about the future as well. Over 8 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine one year ago. And the longer the war lasts, the less likely they are to return. I think refugees fleeing conflict, what first comes to their mind is to flee to safety. However, as the move continues, then other factors come into play.
Language, familiarity with the environment, wanting to be as close to home as possible. For example, Poland has a large number of Ukrainians. Neighboring Poland is sheltering 1.5 million refugees. Germany over a million. Italy, Spain, the UK and France each with over 100,000. 2.
8 million have been recorded in Russia. The Ukrainians are considered as relatively fortunate because they were received with open arms, unlike is the case when it comes to refugees coming from outside Europe. The train network worked. The European Union at a very early stage activated what is known as the Temporary Protection Directive. Most of the nearly 5 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe outside of Russia have been given access to temporary protection. Children can go to local schools, but they also have access to health services. And much more importantly, they have access to the local labor market.
As the war continues and refugees settle into new routines, what happens to Ukraine? This creates a dilemma here because the longer it takes for them to return, the higher the likelihood is they will stay. As refugees begin to integrate into their host communities, you begin to see that the desire to return begins to weaken. In the UNHCR survey of Ukrainian refugees, 63% said they plan to stay in their host country. This is also impacting Ukraine demographically. The Ukrainian population has been shrinking. The war has accelerated this downward demographic trend. The UNHCR has found that of the 35.
6 million people who remain in Ukraine, 5.9 million are internally displaced and 17.6 million are in need of humanitarian assistance. Housing, of course, is at the very center of this issue. Ideally, you go back to your own home and if you're lucky, you stick your key in, you turn it and your house is intact. But when you look at the pictures coming out of Ukraine, you see the extent to which urban centers even the countryside has been destroyed.
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