Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have fled their country for Poland, many on overcrowded trains arriving in Przemysl. Women and children, and also some elderly individuals, make up the majority of refugees arriving at the train station in the city’s southeastern district.
The Ukrainians have been enthusiastically welcomed in a nation where border guards used batons to deter predominantly Afghan and Middle Eastern immigrants last year.
They were now safe from the Russian president’s bombs and missiles, but they were depressed since she had been separated from their families by a Ukrainian command that all non-disabled males remain behind to battle the Russians.
The flight from Ukraine accelerated on Friday, as fears grew that the Kremlin plans to enforce its will well beyond the country’s east, the site of what president Putin alleges, without providing evidence, is a “genocide” against ethnic Russians.
According to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, more than 50,000 Ukrainian citizens have abandoned the country so far, and the organization expects that up to 100,000 have been displaced.
According to Poland’s border service, 29,000 individuals arrived in Poland on Thursday, with thousands more arriving on Friday, resulting in delays of more than 12 hours at specific crossing locations. In addition, more than 26,000 refugees have fled Ukraine into Moldova, with another 10,000 heading to Romania.
Among those citizens who fled the country and entered Poland on Friday were ethnic Russians like Oxana Aleksova, who were as outraged by the Kremlin’s falsehoods, unwarranted brutality, and vulgar propaganda as their Ukrainian counterparts.
Ms. Aleksova, 49, fled into Poland with her 11-year-old child after having to stand all night in a queue of people and cars requesting passage into Poland, which she said stretched for kilometers. In western Ukraine, her birthplace, Khmelnytskyi, was not directly targeted, but Russian missiles had landed on a military base in a neighboring town, she added.
She anticipated that Russia’s military will “of course dominate ultimately” since it has many more soldiers and better weapons than Ukraine. But, she noted, Mr. Putin’s objective is “not just to crush Ukraine, but to make the entire world frightened of him.”
Almost everyone remains to be seen if the Russian president will be successful in this regard. However, his implied threats to utilize nuclear weapons against any nations trying to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf. A growing consensus has emerged among NATO members, including the alliance’s most anti-Russian and hawkish members, including the Baltic states and Poland, that NATO forces should stay out of Ukraine.
As Ukrainians leave their country and enter Poland, the Warsaw administration reported that a “convoy with ammunition” had flown into Ukraine in the other way. “We support Ukrainians and strongly condemn Russian aggression,” stated Poland’s military minister, Mariusz Bazczak.
Small crowds of people who claimed to be heading home to fight also entered Ukraine. “We will defeat Russia,” said a middle-aged man as he marched past Polish border police and into Ukrainian territory, clutching a black duffel bag. Viktor Dick, a German who was trying to get to Kyiv in an attempt to save his pregnant Ukrainian wife and their three kids, was just behind them. He appeared afraid but stated he had no choice but to attempt the risky trip to the beleaguered city in order to save his family.
If the conflict continues, close to five million Ukrainians may migrate to neighboring countries, facing the European Union, which almost collapsed in 2015 due to a 1.5 million-person migration crisis, with another and potentially far more significant inflow of outsiders.
Poland and Hungary, Europe’s most migrant-hostile regimes, have mostly accepted Ukrainians, in contrast to the last surge and crisis last year regarding refugees crossing into Poland and Lithuania through Belarus.
Last year, when refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan attempted to cross the border from Belarus, Polish security personnel beat them back with batons. As a result, close to a dozen people were killed, and many more were injured in the borderland’s woodlands.
On the other hand, refugees from Ukraine have been received with warm grins, hot beverages, and transportation to the closest train station. Ukrainians camping out in the waiting area were given fruit, pastries, and sandwiches by police officers.
Ukrainians, who are predominantly Christian and white, have legitimate permission to enter Poland and other European Union nations without the need for a visa, unlike the immigrants who were forced back from the border by Polish police last year. Poland already has approximately one million Ukrainians.
And the misery of Ukrainians at the hands of the Kremlin has sparked sympathy throughout the previously communist countries of East and Central Europe, where many people have unpleasant recollections of life under Moscow’s rule.
Poland is now organizing reception centers and temporary housing for Ukrainian migrants, despite Poland’s populist right-wing government opposing the EU’s liberal migration policies in 2015.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has somehow dragged Europe into its most significant land conflict since World War II ended in 1945. In addition, this invasion has also left European leaders and many common citizens feeling curiously out of place and out of time.
Ms. Zapotochna, the mother of the ill kid, said she and her spouse decided it is better that she take their son to safety. This decision was made after Russian missiles devastated an airfield near their home in the southwest Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk. It ended up taking her 28 hours to drive to the Polish border.
“I’m hoping we can go back.” I need to return. “This is not my home,” she sobbed, as her sobbing mother-in-law, a Pole who had met her at the border, sought to console the ailing baby.
“I hope we’re still in the twenty-first century,” Ms. Zapotochna stated.