ON THE UKRAINIAN-MOLDOVAN BORDER – The war in Ukraine marked the beginning of the fastest mass migration in Europe in at least three decades, provoking comparisons with the Balkan wars of the 1990s and echoing the massive population displacement that followed the Second world War.
At least 660,000 people, most of them women and children, fled Ukraine to neighboring countries in the west during the first five days of Russia’s invasion, according to the UN refugee agency, which collected statistics from national immigration authorities. And this figure does not include those displaced in Ukraine, who either fled or were ordered to evacuate to Russia.
In less than a week, the flight of Ukrainians is at least 10 times higher than the one-week record of people entering Europe during the migration crisis of 2015, and almost doubled the number of refugees registered by the UN in the first 11 days of the war in Kosovo in 1999
The historic movement of people in the west has caused queues of up to 24 hours at border crossings on Ukraine’s borders with Poland, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, and provoked a widespread humanitarian response from both governments and civilians. The refugees are sheltered in rebuilt schools, as well as private apartments, makeshift camps, conference centers, luxury wineries and even the home of a Moldovan lawmaker.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” said Anna Rogachova, a 34-year-old housewife from Odessa, a Black Sea city, minutes after moving to Moldova with her 8-year-old daughter on Tuesday morning. “And we don’t know when we’ll be back.”
“Let the world know,” said Ms. Rogachova, pointing to a multicolored suitcase in the back of her car. “We left everything. We put our whole lives in this one bag. ”
Then, when the snow began to fall, she began to cry.
Some refugees believe the war will end soon, which will allow them to return quickly. Mrs. Rogachova was not so sure.
If the displacement continues for years, it would be a long-term challenge for Ukraine, which will face a rare brain drain, as well as for host countries where resources are limited and anti-immigrant sentiment is strong. But it can mean opportunities; Eastern European countries such as Moldova, which have been experiencing depopulation for decades, may suddenly be stimulated by a large, educated immigrant population.
Migration statistics may be inaccurate, especially in the early stages of a new chaotic crisis, said Peter Gatrell, a historian of European migration at the University of Manchester in Britain, in a telephone interview.
But for leading migration historians such as Professor Gatrell, the scenes still echo the great migrations in European history, including those in the 1940s, when several million people were displaced across Europe at the end of World War II.
UN officials say the war could kill four million refugees. If the fighting escalates and Ukrainians continue to migrate at the current rate, this may be a conservative estimate, said Philip Terre, a professor of Central European history at the University of Vienna and author of a 1492 history of refugee history in Europe.
“This would be on the scale of the post-war situation,” Professor Terr said in a telephone interview.
A large number of civilians on the move could limit the ability of the Ukrainian military to maneuver, just as huge influxes of refugees prevented armies at the end of World War II, he said.
Migration this week was such that secondary congestion also occurred during subsequent crossings far beyond Ukraine’s borders, including the Moldovan-Romanian border, 70 miles west of Ukraine, as some Ukrainians tried to direct their friends and family to Central Europe. and beyond.
In a sense, the crisis was no surprise. In Moldova, the government has been planning for months for a sudden influx, Moldovan Interior Minister Ana Revenko said in a telephone interview. But the scale of the crisis was shocking: by Monday night, 70,000 people – more than twice the government’s forecast – had entered Moldova, a nation of just 2.6 million and one of the poorest in Europe.
The flows include almost no men between the ages of 18 and 60 who have been banned from leaving Ukraine by the Kiev government unless they have a medical condition that would limit their ability to fight.
“In terms of intensity,” Ms. Revenko said, “it’s probably something no one was prepared for.”
Lost in the great stories were the small and sad stories of individuals. Many were shocked, not only by the war itself, but also by the suddenness with which they were torn from their normal lives.
When the war broke out on Thursday, Ms. Rogachova had just returned from a figure skating competition in Kharkov, where her 8-year-old daughter, Maria, took first place.
A 17-year-old high school student had just celebrated her birthday in Odessa.
The 34-year-old singer has just returned to Ukraine from Russia, dismissing talk of war.
On Tuesday morning, all three were in Moldovan snow, unsure when and if they would return.
Singer Yulia Kondratieva even planned to push to the west, fearing that the war would spill over into Moldova. “It’s not a good idea to stay,” she said. “Maybe there will be battles here.
Going at such a speed, many had forgotten or abandoned their most precious possessions. Apart from clothes, food and basic documents, Ms. Rogachova collected only her daughter’s skates.
As is usual at the beginning of mass migrations, the earliest arrivals were often those with money and means of rapid movement. At the Palanca border crossing in Moldova on Tuesday, cars leaving Ukraine included four and four German sedans. At a nearby wine resort, most of the guests were Ukrainians, waiting to see if the war would weaken before deciding whether to move on.
But there were many without such options.
They walked across the snow line, there were mothers pushing carts, a schoolgirl clutching her books, a woman carrying a bag of toilet paper, and another carrying a small dog.
Some had decided to leave only hours before, after an increase in air strikes around previously peaceful Odessa.
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Pushing her 1-year-old son in a wheelchair, 28-year-old Anna Huck said she initially tried to hide in air raid shelters. “First we played Let’s Hide from the Thunder!” Said Ms. Huck, a teacher. “But then you see your hands tremble and you realize you can’t pretend anymore.
For some foreigners, especially in the developing world, fleeing Ukraine has been particularly traumatic. On Tuesday, a group of Vietnamese workers were quickly placed in a makeshift government camp in Moldova. But African refugees report widespread discrimination, making it particularly difficult for them to leave; at the Polish border, a Times reporter noted that Africans are treated much more slowly than Ukrainians.
Christian, a 30-year-old Congolese electrical engineer who gave his first name to avoid problems with authorities, said he waited 20 hours for it to pass. After traveling by train from Odessa, he worried about what was coming. After eight years of studying and working in Ukraine, he said, he did not know where he could go. “There is a war here and there is a war in the Congo.”
But at least he had documents, he said. “There are a lot of undocumented people here,” he said. “What will happen to them?”
A Ukrainian woman gave birth while traveling by bus to the border, forcing her to stay in Ukraine, according to the Israeli charity United Hatzalah, which helped her.
Another pregnant woman, Maria Voinskaya, arrived in Moldova just in time and had to give birth by caesarean section on Wednesday.
Did she wonder when her child could see Ukraine for the first time? “I don’t even want to think about it,” said 31-year-old Voinscaia in a telephone interview with a hospital. “Last week I couldn’t even imagine it.”
For some, the thought of a permanent separation from their homeland has deepened their sense of Ukrainian identity.
The night before everyone left for Moldova, Ms. Rogachova went down with her daughter Maria and her mother Victoria, all Russian speakers.
“Never, never forget that you are Ukrainian,” Victoria told Maria.
“We will speak Ukrainian at home,” Maria promised.
But now it was not clear where the home was.
Victoria was heading to Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, to stay with an aunt. Mrs. Rogachova and her daughter went to Germany to stay with friends of friends.
And standing in the snow, Mrs. Rogachova was in tears again.
Carlotta Gal contributed to reports from Medyka, Poland, and Irina Perciun from Palanca, Moldova.