Number of Refugees Who Have Left War-Torn Ukraine Hits Two Million

BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 04: People fleeing Ukraine arrive from Poland at Hauptbahnhof main
Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Peter Caddle

Over two million refugees have now fled Ukraine as Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its invasion of the country.

The number of refugees who have left the eastern-European country of Ukraine has now reportedly surpassed two million, as Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its conquest of the former Soviet satellite state.

Poland has been taking the brunt of the exodus, with more than one million fleeing Ukrainians passing arriving there since the invasion began.

According to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, the number of people fleeing the conflict exceeded two million on Tuesday.

“Today the outflow of refugees from Ukraine reaches two million people,” the UN commissioner wrote online, with Deutsche Welle also noting the commissioner as saying that the second wave of arrivals in Europe will likely be more vulnerable than the last.

“If the war continues we will start seeing people that have no resources and no connections,” Grandi is reported as claiming during a press conference in Oslo. “That will be a more complex situation to manage for European countries going forward.”

Meanwhile, the International Rescue Committee — an NGO specialising in providing aid to refugees — has said that Ukraine will require significant amounts of aid for some time, even if the war was to end immediately.

“Even if the (war) were to stop right now, there would be a huge amount of humanitarian need both inside Ukraine which would make people want to leave to find safety,” the German broadcaster reports the group’s Senior Global Communications Officer as saying.

“It’s not a situation that’s going to get fixed anytime soon,” she continued.

Poland has been receiving the brunt of the humanitarian crisis, which is the fastest-growing of its kind since the Second World War.

As of writing, Poland has received over 1.2 million of the over 2 million refugees who have fled the country, with the number of refugees in the country now outstripping the number of immigrants taken in by Merkel’s Germany during the 2015 migrant crisis.

This is despite the fact that Germany has a population of more than double Poland’s.

“At the Polish/Ukrainian border I was impressed by the outpouring of solidarity by communities through Poland in support of refugees: many volunteers in action, and piles of donations everywhere, all effectively organized by border guards and local authorities,” Commissioner Grandi previously remarked regarding Poland’s humanitarian efforts.

Most of those arriving in the country plan to move on to another location within a number of days, according to a report by The Guardian.

“Most people we are seeing need a place to stay for one or two days, before travelling to other destinations,” Dominika Chylewska — who serves as head of communications for Caritas Poland — told the publication.

“They are frozen, there were even people coming barefoot, but most people have small bags,” she also said.

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