Putin's Russia created Europe's worst refugee crisis
Many silently hope the war in Ukraine ends soon, so refugees can return home
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Russian invasion of Ukraine has produced Europe’s gravest refugee crisis arguably since the Second World War. The Ukrainian disaster shares some similarities with other European migrant emergencies. The Third World’s illegal masses consistently burst into Spain, Italy, and France. They also endeavor to walk in, mostly via Greece and the Balkans.
That was particularly the highway of choice a few years ago when more than one million migrants from the Middle East and Central Asia poured into Europe at the invitation of Germany’s then chancellor, Angela Merkel. She consulted neither Brussels nor any other capitals before destabilizing not only her nation but also the south-eastern part of the continent.
The Balkan route depends on Turkey’s mercy. If Ankara wants to punish the EU, it turns on the spigot with migrants. Yet, things have calmed down since Hungary built a border wall. In central-eastern Europe another wall is going up: along the Belarusian border.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is to counter Minsk’s unleashing waves of trespassers against Lithuania, Latvia, and, in particular, Poland. Though EU law dictates that migrants must remain in the first member nation they arrive in, most prefer Western Europe, mostly for economic reasons.
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Great Britain remains the most popular destination. Yet, the tales of Scandinavia’s generosity spread far and wide, thus certainly propelling many an uninvited guest to appear in Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. The hosts however are getting exasperated with the arrivals. That is probably the reason why the Nordics are less than willing to accept war refugees from Ukraine. Sweden explicitly stated so.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Initially, the Swedes even refused to offer anything but token assistance. Now it has changed dramatically: Stockholm has pledged billions for the Ukrainian war effort.
Ukraine, meanwhile, reckons with a massive refugee crisis of its own. By some accounts there are over 14 million citizens displaced internally. Many are on the move. Whenever they can, they head back home, as has been the case after the lifting of the siege of Kiyv and Kharkiv.
Additionally, perhaps as many as 5 million Ukrainians have crossed the borders to flee the horror of war. It is estimated that about 860,000 of them found themselves in Russian territory. They are put in filtration camps (both inside and outside Ukraine) and then Moscow ships them further afield, including to Siberia.
The Ukrainian government charges the Russians with removing most Ukrainian citizens forcefully. The Kremlin denies the charges.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As far as host nations to the west, Moldova took the largest share of refugees, over 465,000 people, as relative to the size of its own population of about 2.7 million. Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria accepted around 2.5 million all together, but the largest number of refugees, 3.4 million, poured into Poland.
About a million proceeded further afield: to Czechia, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain. But over two million remained behind in Poland. Ninety-five per cent of them are women and children. They have all been automatically accorded privileges of Polish citizens. The Ukrainians receive the same level of social assistance as the natives. Ukrainian children attend Polish schools free of charge. They receive subsidized housing and other allowances.
The Poles opened up their homes and hearts to the new arrivals. The Ukrainians are victims of the common enemy: Vladimir Putin’s Russia. They are culturally compatible as fellow victims of Communism, who earlier shared a long history of togetherness in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Poles have chosen to forget Ukrainian crimes against them, including ancient and new, in particular the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Polish villages by the Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War. Warsaw wants to start with a clean slate as far as Kyiv.
There is a bit of grumbling from the Polish grassroots and a very few in the political class both for historical and current reasons.
Many silently hope that the war ends soon, and the refugees return home. Some are worried that the influx dramatically changes the uniform face of Poland’s demographics, recreating a huge national minority as before 1945.
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Others point out that Ukrainian nationalists lay claims to south-eastern Polish territory. At the level of restitution, they have not apologized for the war-time slaughter of the Poles.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Although suffused by current pro-Ukrainian euphoria, these sentiments are nonetheless very much alive and real. They will have to be addressed as a part of solution to the ongoing Ukrainian refugee crisis.