Putin’s Refugees Will Make or Break Europe
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause a migrant crisis that could make 2015 look orderly.
Getting ready in Poland.
Photographer: Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
Just on Day One of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the European Commission, about 120,000 people fled their homes — becoming “internally displaced,” in the bureaucratic jargon. Roads and highways out of Kyiv and other cities were clogged. Again, that was just the first day.
How many Ukrainians will try to escape their country in the coming weeks and months depends on how brutally Russian President Vladimir Putin will subjugate it. And brutal it'll be, by the looks of it. Between one million and five million civilians could flee westward and into the European Union. The refugee crisis of 2022 is likely to make its 2015 antecedent look orderly, and rival that of 1945.