Dragging suitcases and carrying children, tens of thousands of Ukrainians rushed to the borders Saturday as invading Russian troops pressed their advance into Ukraine, moving toward the country's capital of Kyiv. Nearly 120,000 people have so far fled Ukraine into Poland and other neighboring countries in the wake of the Russian invasion, the UN refugee agency said Saturday, per the AP. Some walked many miles through the night, while others fled by train, car, or bus, forming lines miles long at border crossings. They were greeted by waiting relatives and friends or headed on their own to reception centers organized by neighboring governments. "This may go up, it's changing every minute," said Shabia Mantoo, the spokeswoman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "It's very fluid and changing by the hour."
The agency expects up to 4 million Ukrainians could flee if the situation deteriorates further. Those arriving were mostly women, children, and the elderly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky banned men of military age from 18 to 60 from leaving. Some Ukrainian men were heading back into Ukraine from Poland to take up arms against the Russian forces. In contrast to other conflicts around the globe, Russia's unprovoked attack on the Western-looking democracy has ignited a huge outpouring of support for the fleeing Ukrainians. This included an unconditional welcome from nations like Poland and Hungary that didn't want to accept those fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Regular people were also opening up their homes to refugees and volunteering at welcome centers.
In Poland, a Facebook page was formed where people were offered rides in private cars from the border and other help. Volunteers even came from elsewhere in Europe to pick up refugees. Despite the goodwill, however, the crush of people became a very real ordeal. Jeremy Myers, from Manchester, England, was on vacation in Ukraine with his Ukrainian girlfriend when the war started. They fled Kyiv and waited 23 hours in a fenced-off area where there was no food or water and that was controlled by armed guards on the Ukrainian side. He witnessed people fighting and getting crushed and a woman who fainted. Mantoo said most Ukrainians were heading to neighboring Poland, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia but some even fled into Belarus—from which some Russian forces entered Ukraine. Some planned to head further on to other countries in Europe.
story continues below
The largest numbers were arriving in Poland, where 2 million Ukrainians have already settled to work in recent years, driven away by Russia's first incursion into Ukraine when it annexed Crimea in 2014. Poland’s government said Saturday that more than 100,000 Ukrainians had crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border in the past 48 hours alone. The line of vehicles waiting to enter Poland at Medyka stretched many miles into Ukraine. The border post in Siret, Romania, was crowded with Ukrainians on Saturday, and humanitarian groups set up tents a few miles in and offered food and drink to those arriving. Despite the welcome, teenager Natalia Murinik's family didn't know where they were going next. "We don't have a clue," she said. "We're waiting for our friends, and then we'll think."
(More
Russia-Ukraine war stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
