More than 1.5 million people flee Ukraine war
GENEVA, Switzerland — More than 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, according to the latest UN data on Sunday.
1,534,792
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had recorded 1,534,792 refugees on its dedicated website by 1335 GMT, almost 166,000 more than the previous count on Saturday.
Authorities and the UN expect the flow to intensify as the Russian army continues to advance into Ukraine, particularly as it approaches the capital, Kyiv.
"More than 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed into neighbouring countries in 10 days — the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, tweeted.
According to the UN, four million people may seek to leave the country to escape the war.
Before the conflict, Ukraine had more than 37 million people in areas controlled by Kyiv — which does not include Russian-annexed Crimea or separatist-controlled areas.
Poland
Poland, which has championed the cause of Ukrainian refugees and where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived on Saturday for talks with the country's top officials, is hosting by far the largest number of refugees arriving since the start of the Russian invasion.
In total, there were 885,303 refugees in Poland on Sunday, according to the UNHCR count — 129,000 more than on Saturday and 57.7 percent of the total number recorded to have fled.
Polish border guards said they had registered 964,000 refugees by Sunday.
The number of arrivals reached a record 129,000 on Saturday. The vast majority were Ukrainians but the influx also included citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Belarus, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, the United States and Uzbekistan.
Before the crisis, Poland was already home to about 1.5 million Ukrainians, most of whom came to work in the EU member state.
Hungary
Hungary has taken in 169,053 people, or 11 percent of the total, and more than 12,000 more than the previous day, according to the UNHCR.
The country has five border crossings with Ukraine and several border towns, including Zahony, have turned public buildings into relief centres, where Hungarian civilians offer food or assistance.
Slovakia
Some 113,967 people have fled Ukraine for Slovakia, or 7.4 percent of the total, the UNHCR says.
Moldova
Some 84,067 people, or 5.5 percent of the total, have crossed into Moldova, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting on Sunday.
Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita urged the US on Sunday to provide more humanitarian aid to help her country of 2.6 million, one of Europe's poorest, cope with the influx of people from Ukraine.
According to the UNHCR, some of the refugees are continuing on from Moldova to Romania or Hungary, often to reunite with family.
Romania
In Romania, the UNHCR has registered 71,640 refugees, or about 4.7 percent of the total.
Two camps have been set up, one in Sighetu Marmatiei and the other in Siret.
Elsewhere in Europe
UNHCR also said that 157,056 people, around one in 10, had continued on to other European countries after crossing the Ukrainian border.
Russia
The number of people taking refuge in Russia remains unchanged at around 53,000, or 3.9 percent of the total.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday secured Turkey's crucial backing for Ukraine's NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions that could inflict massive damage on Russian forces on the battlefield.
Washington's decision to deliver the controversial weapons — banned across a large part of the world but not in Russia or Ukraine — dramatically ups the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day Saturday.
Zelensky has been travelling across Europe trying to secure bigger and better weapons for his outmatched army, which has launched a long-awaited counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine's allies had hoped. — AFP
Washington's decision to supply Ukraine with ATACMS long-range missiles is "a grave mistake", Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov says Wednesday.
"The White House's decision to send long-range missiles to Ukrainians is a grave mistake. The consequences of this step, which was deliberately hidden from the public, will be of the most serious nature," he says in a statement. — AFP
President Vladimir Putin says Sunday that Russian forces had made gains in their Ukraine offensive including in Avdiivka, a symbolic industrial hub.
"Our troops are improving their position in almost all of this area, which is quite vast," he says in an interview on Russian television, an extract of which was posted on social media on Sunday. "This concerns the areas of Kupiansk, Zaporizhia and Avdiivka." — AFP
The regional governor says debris from a drone destroyed over the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, fell on homes and killed three people, including a young child.
The air defense system "shot down an aircraft-type UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) approaching the city", says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that the falling debris destroyed several homes.
"Most importantly, three people were killed, one of them a small child," he writes on the Telegram messaging app, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of rubble behind red and white police tape. — AFP
Ukraine's air force says on Tuesday that it had destroyed 27 of 36 Russian attack drones overnight in the south of the country.
Ukrainian forces downed 27 "Shahed-136/131" drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, the air force said on the messaging platform Telegram.
In all, Moscow had launched 36 of the Iranian-made drones from the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, it says. — AFP
The Kremlin claims on Friday Russian forces never targeted civilian infrastructure after Ukraine blamed Moscow for a missile attack that killed over 50 people in the eastern village of Groza.
"We repeat that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets. Strikes are carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says in his daily briefing. — AFP
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