According to migration researcher Gerald Knaus, a defeat by Ukraine in the war against Russia would have serious consequences for migration policy. “If Putin gets his way and Ukraine loses the war, that could make another ten million people refugees,” Knaus told the Tagesspiegel.
There is currently a threat of further escalation in the Ukraine war. On Friday, the spokesman for the presidential office in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov, declared: “We are in a state of war.” Until now, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin had always spoken of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian capital Kiev was also the target of Russian missile attacks on Sunday night. According to the city’s military administration, Kiev was rocked by several explosions in the morning.
The most important way to combat the causes of flight in Europe today is to support Ukraine.
Gerald Knausmigration expert
According to Knaus, the “most important fight against the causes of flight for Europe” today is support for Ukraine. “We are in the middle of a historic refugee crisis in Europe that could dwarf any crisis that has occurred anywhere in the world since the 1940s,” he added. The migration researcher criticized that there is currently a lack of “a convincing strategy to prevent the worst-case scenario or to prepare ourselves for it in the EU.”
Majority of Ukrainian refugees in Germany
Within the EU, the majority of war refugees from Ukraine – measured in absolute numbers – are now no longer in Poland, but in Germany. This emerges from a report by the “European Stability Initiative” (ESI) think tank headed by Knaus. The figures from the report, which will be published next week, are available to the Tagesspiegel.
According to this, 1.2 million applications for protection from refugees from Ukraine were registered in Germany last December. According to the EU statistics agency Eurostat, there were 951,435 Ukrainians in Poland who had applied for temporary protection at that time. A year earlier there were 1.56 million in Poland, but 1.02 million in Germany.
According to the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR), there were 1.1 million war refugees from Ukraine in Germany in February. The numbers recorded by the AZR have been rising continuously for a year. In March 2023, the Central Register of Foreigners still registered 1.06 million refugees from Ukraine. The register figures also include war refugees who have since left Germany.
© dpa/Francesco Scarpa
Ukrainians do not have to go through the asylum process under an EU directive activated after the Russian invasion in February 2022. In Germany they receive citizen’s money.
In the opinion of migration researcher Knaus, the trends that were already identified in a report by the “European Stability Initiative” from February 2023 are continuing when it comes to accepting refugees from Ukraine. Accordingly, Ukrainians primarily flee to countries where a Slavic language is spoken.
If one takes the respective total population as a benchmark, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria took in the most refugees in the EU last December. There the proportion was 3.4 percent (Czech Republic) and 2.6 percent (Bulgaria), while in Germany it was only 1.4 percent. “Per capita, some countries are still ahead of Germany – despite the citizen’s money,” said Knaus.
Meanwhile, France took in the lowest proportion of Ukrainian refugees at 0.09 percent. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, with around 230,000 people, has so far taken in as many Ukrainian refugees as France and Italy combined, Knaus continued. According to him, now would be a good opportunity to show “European solidarity” with countries such as Germany, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic that are taking in many refugees.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the number of Ukrainian refugees increased by 3.35 percent in January compared to the same month last year. This emerges from figures compiled by the Central Register of Foreigners at the request of the Integration Media Service. According to the figures, the increase was even more significant in Berlin. 62,777 Ukrainian refugees were registered there in January – an increase of 19.9 percent compared to the same month last year. However, according to the Berlin State Office for Refugee Affairs, “current arrivals are below the level of the last few weeks”.