Central Europe braces for more Ukraine refugees escaping Russian war

Since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, the fighting has displaced more than 10 million people and forced nearly four million to flee Ukraine.

Central European nations are bracing for a renewed influx of refugees from Ukraine that could test their capacity to house, school and find work for the rising numbers of mainly women and children escaping the war.

While the flow of people across the EU’s eastern borders has ebbed, aid workers say recent Russian missile strikes on military targets in Lviv may spur more people to leave the city just 60 kilometres from the border with NATO-member Poland.

“We are getting news from Lviv … that there is likely a very large number of buses that has gathered that could come our way either tomorrow or the day after,” said Regina Slonicka, a former journalist now volunteering at Warsaw train station. “So again we will have a great need for help.”

Since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, the fighting has displaced more than 10 million people and forced nearly four million to flee Ukraine in Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since the end of the Second World War, according to the UN refugee agency.

More than half of the refugees arriving in the European Union have come via Poland, home to the region’s largest Ukrainian community of around 1.5 million people before the war. Others have come through Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

At a refugee reception in Warsaw, the EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Nicolas Schmit praised Poland for absorbing so many refugees and pledged more support to aid the country’s efforts.

“Solidarity should have a concrete dimension,” Schmit said. “It should be based on the commitment of the whole of Europe to support, including financial support. Europe will not leave Poland alone in the face of this challenge.”

EU interior ministers were meeting in Brussels on Monday to discuss coordination for settlement of refugees, including financial and other support for member states taking them in.