A Ukrainian carries a child in a blanket after crossing the border in Siret, Romania, on March 2, 2022. — A Ukrainian woman carries a child in a blanket after crossing the border to Siret, Romania, on March 2. Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg

More Than a Million People Have Fled Ukraine in Just One Week

By Hayley Warren, Rachael Dottle, Ella Ceron and Ilena Peng

March 4, 2022, 12:00 AM EST

More than one million people have fled Ukraine into neighboring countries in the week following Russia’s invasion, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The number could climb to four million, with six million more projected to be displaced within the country, the UN said Thursday. In total, almost a quarter of Ukraine’s population may be rendered homeless by the war, making it the biggest single-country disruption after the Syrian refugee crisis of the past decade.

Note: The number of Ukrainian residents represents those who held a residence permit in 2020. This is an undercount of the total number of Ukrainian citizens in those countries.

Sources: UNHCR; Eurostat

Ukrainian and foreign nationals have been welcomed by bordering countries, which have waived visa requirements and allow asylum requests at any crossing point. Poland, already home to more than one million Ukrainians, has been the first point of escape.

So far, the stream of refugees has been unrelenting. Some 120,000 people left Ukraine through western borders on Feb. 28, according to the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, a flood that abated only slightly to 94,000 on March 2. Lines stretched to more than 2,000 vehicles at some crossings, leaving people waiting up to 40 hours in nearly freezing temperatures.

A child sleeps on his family's belongings after arriving at the Hungarian border town of Zahony on a train from Ukraine on March 3. Photographer: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Cars wait to pick up refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, in Palanca, Moldova on March 2. Photographer: Aurel Obreja/AP

People fleeing Ukraine register for a bus in Przemysl, Poland, which will take them to Germany, on March 3. Photographer: Markus Schreiber/AP

Displaced Ukrainians in an emergency shelter in Siret, Romania on March 2. Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg

People board a train bound for Lviv in Dnipro, Ukraine on March 2. Photographer: Andrea Carrubba/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

People wait to board a Lviv-bound train in Kyiv, Ukraine on March 1. Photographer: Emilio Morenatti/AP

In the week before the invasion, 96,000 people moved from Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions into Russia, the UNHCR said. Those areas in eastern Ukraine include the breakaway pro-Russia territories that Vladimir Putin recently recognized as independent. As of Feb. 26, Ukranians were banned from entering Russia. Even so, an estimated 40,000 people have fled into Russian territory since the invasion.

But the exodus has been ongoing since President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. An estimated 140,000 ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars have moved out of the area in the past seven years. These figures don’t include the more than 100,000 people who have been displaced within Ukraine this week, according to the UN.

Note: Data excludes asylum applications for Russia

Source: UNHCR

European Union member states have agreed to grant Ukrainians full access to the bloc, make them eligible for residence permits and provide access to school and work. Non-border countries are preparing to accept more people. Ireland has waived visa requirements for Ukrainians and will welcome up to 20,000 refugees. Ukrainians living in the U.K. will be able to sponsor extended family members for a humanitarian visa, a policy that’s expected to make 200,000 people eligible for refugee status.

Vehicles and pedestrians in line at the Budomezh–Hrushiv checkpoint — **Budomezh–Hrushiv** checkpoint on the border between Ukraine and Poland, March 2 around 5pm local time

People rest in a shopping mall acting as a temporary reception center for refugees in Młyny, Poland on Feb. 28.

Source: Europa Press/Getty Images

Vehicles and pedestrians in line at the Shehyni-Medyka checkpoint — **Shehyni-Medyka** checkpoint at the border between Ukraine and Poland, March 3 around 10:30pm

Source: Ukrainian State Border Guard Service

On Feb 25 a 6.5km long traffic jam of people, cars and trucks near the **Porubne-Siret** border crossing in Romania

Photographer: Maxar Technologies

Refugees from Ukraine wait to board a bus at the border checkpoint near the town of Palanca, Moldova. on March 1.

Photographer: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images

Women and children make up the bulk of the refugees. Ukrainian men between the ages 18 and 60 are prevented from leaving so they can be pressed into military service. (Another 16,000 have entered the country to join the Ukrainian army’s International Legion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.)

Local authorities and charities have set up reception centers with beds and food donations in railway stations and shopping centers, shown here in Poland and Hungary. Refugee distribution centers have also been set up on the border with Moldova.

Displaced Ukrainians at a temporary shelter inside a gymnasium in Tiszabecs, Hungary, on Feb. 28.

Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg

The global rush to accept and support refugees is a shift for Europe, where many countries had been working to tighten their borders. As of November, more than half of the 820,000 people applying for asylum to EU member nations had been waiting for more than 180 days. At the same time, thousands of migrants were stranded on Poland’s border with Belarus, where a state of emergency was created to stem an inflow of migrants mostly from the Middle East.

“What is really notable is the attitude, the sympathy and solidarity and compassion of people in Europe and European governments towards Ukrainian refugees,” said Serena Parekh, a professor at Northeastern University and author of “No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis.”

“That was not the attitude that they had towards Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees and others who were also fleeing war and in need of asylum and protection from the European Union,” she said.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria, who as interior minister sought to block some Afghan refugees from entering, said this situation was “totally different” and a matter of “neighborly assistance.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a champion of anti-immigration policies who faces a tough re-election fight in April, also said his country would accept refugees. “We’re prepared to take care of them, and we’ll be able to rise to the challenge quickly and efficiently,” Orban said after a meeting with his national security cabinet.

Note: Not all applicants are guaranteed the right to settle permanently.

Source: UNHCR

Almost half a million people living in Ukraine are migrant workers and international students, according to estimates from the International Organization of Migration. About 80,000 of those are students, many from India, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Nigeria and China. New Delhi has evacuated about 12,000 Indian students in the last month, and half of the remaining 8,000 students are estimated to be in the Kharkiv-Sumy conflict zone, according to a March 1 briefing by India’s foreign secretary. Already one Indian student was killed in shelling while waiting in line to buy food, according to India’s foreign ministry.

Leaving Ukraine may pose different challenges for people of color and other vulnerable groups. Some non-White refugees say they’ve faced racism at the border (the UN says that’s not state policy), and transgender people have worried about their ability to leave without identification that matches their name or gender identities.

“There should be absolutely no discrimination between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, Europeans and non-Europeans. Everybody is fleeing from the same risks,” Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said on Tuesday.

Residents carry supplies on the outskirts of Irpin, Ukraine on March 1. Photographer: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

A Ukrainian soldier visits his son who is taking shelter in the lower level of a Kyiv metro station on March 2. Photographer: Erin Trieb/Bloomberg

The aftermath of shelling in Kharkiv, on March 1. Photographer: Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Residents queue outside a pharmacy in Kyiv on March 1. Photographer: Erin Trieb/Bloomberg

Members of a Ukrainian civil defense unit pass assault rifles across what remains of a blown up bridge on Kyiv's northern front on March 1. Photographer Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

A damaged sports complex across the street from the TV Tower in Kyiv on March 02. Photographer: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

The UN humanitarian agencies and their NGO partners have launched an appeal to donors for $1.7 billion to support both the people remaining in Ukraine and those who have fled. The Norwegian government has allocated $230 million, the U.K. has committed nearly $160 million and the U.S. has so far pledged an additional $54 million in humanitarian aid on top of the $700 million in security and humanitarian aid it had previously committed in the last year.

Note: Spending for selected countries since Feb. 23 does not include aid that has been committed since 2014.

Source: Government announcements

If UN projections turn out to be accurate, the Ukrainian refugee crisis would reflect the second-largest such exodus from a single country, behind the estimated 13.5 million people who have escaped or been displaced by war in Syria in the past decade. At least six million people have fled Venezuela since 2014.

In total, some 84 million people had been forcibly displaced as of mid-2021, the UNHCR said. Almost a third of those people are refugees, while nearly 60% of those people are internally displaced within their own countries.

“This is one crisis in a larger global story,” Parekh said. “My hope would be to link it — link people’s compassion and solidarity with other refugees.”

More Than a Million People Have Fled Ukraine in Just One Week

Where Ukraine’s Refugees Are Fleeing

Ongoing Exodus

Europe’s Existing Migrant Crisis

Humanitarian Aid