As Ukraine crisis looms, Europe prepares for another refugee wave

Countries in Eastern Europe are making preparations for potentially hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine if the crisis with Russia escalates, with some Polish towns already listing places available and Romania considering refugee camps.

Memories of the Iron Curtain and Soviet influence are still very much alive on the European Union’s eastern flank, where people are wary of any instability that could hit their economies and unleash a wave of migration last seen in the 1990s during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, and the United States has warned that an attack could begin in the coming days. Moscow denies any such plans and has accused the West of “hysteria.”

Nonetheless, governments and towns near the Ukrainian border, from north to south, are getting ready to take in refugees, if needed.

Poland, which is home to between 1 million and 2 million Ukrainians, who mostly came to the country to work, said on Monday it was preparing for a worst case scenario. Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz told Catholic broadcaster Radio Plus he was “preparing for large numbers so as to be better prepared.”

The mayor of the eastern Polish town of Ciechanow, which has a population of around 44,000, said it was ready to receive around 80 refugees in a hotel within 48 hours, at a cost of 140 zlotys ($35) per night including food.

“We have been assured that the state budget will fully cover the costs,” Mayor Krzysztof Kosinski told Reuters.

On Sunday, the northern town of Elblag said it had 420 places available. The central Polish city of Torun said it had 96 places for refugees. In the south, the city of Czestochowa said it has 1,100 places.

‘No hope of return’

Romania, which also shares a long border with Ukraine, finalized an action plan on Sunday, Interior Minister Lucian Bode told private television station B1.

“We know that Poland is preparing to take 1 million migrants. Is Romania ready to take hundreds of thousands of refugees in an uncontrolled influx?,” he said.

“We have taken several hypotheses into account. ... We are currently analyzing how many refugee camps we can install in a relatively short time, 10, 12, 24 hours. We are analyzing existing lodging capacities in border counties but we are also discussing the second stage, with neighboring counties, and the third stage across the country.”

Slovakia’s defense minister has said that there may be tens of thousands of refugees even under a limited conflict. Interior Minister Robert Mikulec said the government was preparing for various scenarios with its armed forces and was in close contact with the authorities in Ukraine.

Hungary, which has over 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine and tens of thousands of immigrant workers from Ukraine, is also making preparations.

“We also have a playbook and an action plan in the event of war,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday, stressing that “Hungary’s interests are clear: first and foremost, war must be avoided.”

Mr. Orban flagged the possibility of hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in the case of war.

“Think back to the 1990s, when tens of thousands of people arrived from the former Yugoslav territories. That was not easy either – but many more would come from Ukraine, probably with no hope of return,” he said.

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have also said they were readying to accept refugees. Lithuania’s interior minister last week said the government asked municipalities to list available housing, adding they expected refugees to come mainly from Poland and on flights.

The Latvian Interior Ministry is considering a string of refugee centers along its eastern border to house undocumented Ukrainian refugees with no place to stay, BNS news wire reported on Monday. The plan would need government approval.

Diplomacy continues

The U.S. on Sunday said Russia could invade Ukraine at any time and might create a surprise pretext for an attack, as it reaffirmed a pledge to defend “every inch” of NATO territory.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there were certain channels for dialog, one positive being that President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden have been in contact – the two spoke by phone on Saturday – but that ties in other areas were strained.

“The heads of state are in dialogue, there is dialogue on other fronts,” Russian news agency RIA cited Mr. Peskov as saying in an interview. “This is a plus because you know that just a couple of years ago there was zero dialogue, there were no such contacts whatsoever.

“But on the rest, unfortunately, in bilateral relations one can only talk about negatives. We are at a very, very low point. They are actually lying on the floor.” 

Meanwhile, Ukraine could drop its bid to join NATO to avoid war with Russia, the BBC quoted the country’s ambassador to Britain as saying, in what would amount to a major concession to Moscow in response to the build-up of Russian troops on its borders.

Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko told the BBC Ukraine was willing to be “flexible” over its goal to join the Atlantic military alliance, a move Mr. Putin has said would be a trigger for war.

“We might – especially being threatened like that, blackmailed by that, and pushed to it,” Ambassador Prystaiko was quoted as saying when asked if Kyiv could change its position on NATO membership.

Ukraine is not a NATO member but has a promise dating from 2008 that it will eventually be given the opportunity to join, a step that would bring the U.S.-led alliance to Russia’s border.

On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Ukraine to meet with leaders there before heading to Moscow on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Putin.

“[These trips are] about how we can find a way to ensure peace in Europe,” Mr. Scholz told reporters on Sunday, saying the Russian build-up represented a “very, very serious threat” to that.

This story was reported by Reuters. Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, Romania; Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw, Poland; Jan Lopatka in Prague, Czech Republic; Andrea Sytas in Vilnius, Lithuania; Maria Kiselyova in Moscow; Andreas Rinke and Sarah Marsh in Berlin; and Stephen Coates contributed to this report.