Millions of Ukrainians have fled the Russian attack, but many are now returning. The spokesman for the Ukrainian border police, Andriy Demchenko, told WELT: “Since the war began on February 24, 510,000 Ukrainians have returned from abroad, including more than 110,000 in the last week.”
According to Demchenko, up to 80 percent of Ukrainians arriving are men. The border police officers did not ask every returnee for their reasons, but one can clearly say that most of them wanted to contribute to national defense, either militarily or not, the spokesman said last week in the Lviv media center.
Most returnees come from neighboring Poland to the north-west: according to Polish border guards, 352,000 Ukrainians have left for their home country since the beginning of the war, as the authorities announced on Monday. According to earlier information from the border guard, these travelers are mostly Ukrainian citizens who are returning to their home country. Many men, but also women, want to join the Ukrainian troops there. Others go back to look after children or dependents in need.
More than 2.3 million refugees have arrived in Poland since the beginning of the war. On Sunday alone there were around 27,000 people, a little less than the day before. All in all, it was mostly women and children who fled Ukraine. With the exception of exceptional cases, adult men under the age of 60 have been prohibited from leaving the country since the general mobilization.
Source: Infographic WORLD
According to the Union of Ukrainian Youth in Lviv, Ukrainians are also returning from neighboring countries such as Hungary and Estonia. A spokesman told WELT that these were mostly men who wanted to join the defense forces. The Hungarian government announced on Monday that 530,000 refugees had already arrived since the beginning of the war.
“That means more than five refugees per 100 inhabitants, which is the highest admission rate of all neighboring countries of Ukraine,” said government spokesman Zoltán Kovács. It is not possible to say how many people from Hungary, Poland and the other neighboring countries are traveling on. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, 272,000 Ukrainians had been registered in Germany by Monday morning, around 5,000 of them on Sunday. However, the number of people seeking protection from Ukraine who have entered the country is “actually much higher” because by no means all entries are registered at the borders.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has not yet found any information about return movements from Germany to Ukraine, as the office announced on request. According to information from security circles, such smaller return movements would be difficult to detect because when leaving Germany the probability of being noticed by the border police is even lower than when entering by car.
The often late registration causes criticism from the municipal umbrella organizations. Helmut Dedy, General Manager of the Association of German Cities, said: “Of course it would be best to register people in need of protection upon entry at the borders or in the initial reception facilities. Then a fair distribution would be possible right from the start.” If this does not succeed, the federal states must ensure the collection and registration of all Ukrainian refugees. The deployment of mobile teams from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and from some countries are important first steps.
Dedy pleads for a simplified registration procedure, it is questionable “whether a registration with complex identification service treatment is always necessary”. “It takes quite a long time and does not fit into the dynamic situation that we have at the moment. Many refugees have biometric passports, so there is no doubt about their identity.”
The president of the district council, Reinhard Sager, considers better registration to be essential. “Many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians could still flee to us and possibly stay permanently. In such a situation, complete recording is fundamental,” said the CDU politician. The recording is important for a sensible distribution and thus also for the structured integration into schools, accommodation in apartments and taking up work. However, the distribution is not yet running smoothly.
Association of Towns and Municipalities: Registration lines at arrival stations
“From a municipal perspective, it would be a good thing if announced displaced persons actually arrived in the district concerned. This is not yet working satisfactorily, so that some beds, food, clothing and hygiene items are prepared on site, but then fewer people come than announced. ”You could improve this by not communicating the planned arrivals, but by transmitting how many in real time people actually boarded the buses in question.
Gerd Landsberg, General Manager of the Association of Towns and Municipalities argues: “Of course it would be best if the war expellees were already registered when they entered Germany. In view of the large numbers and the duration of the registration process, which can sometimes take up to an hour, this is very difficult to implement.” It seems more practical to set up registration lanes at the federal arrival stations.
On Monday, CDU party leader Friedrich Merz again called for continuous registration “primarily to protect the refugees themselves”. The aim is to know who is coming, where people are going and who is taking them in. “None of this is rocket science.” The federal government can do this and even take over data from the Polish government. “She’s playing artificially stupid here.”
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) currently rejects a general obligation to register. They are mainly talking about children and women who have been on the run for days, she said “Daily Mirror”.
The First Parliamentary Secretary of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, criticized Faeser sharply. “It is only through the complete recording that the basis for rapid and best possible help is created at all,” he said. Municipalities would face enormous challenges: tens of thousands of school and daycare places would have to be found, language skills taught, people put into work and health care organized. “We can’t wait to find out in 90 days that there may not be 260,000, but 500,000 people in the country,” Frei continued.
If recording is not possible under the existing legal situation, then this legal situation must be changed. That’s what the government is there for. “It’s war in Europe. The Federal Minister of the Interior must finally take note of its dimensions and wake up,” said Frei.
“The Federal Minister of the Interior has repeatedly underestimated the dimensions of the flight and is thus leaving the reception and support of the refugees to chance.” First, Faeser said that distribution within Germany was not necessary. Only the desperate calls for help from the municipalities would have persuaded them to change course. He also criticizes the fact that the interior minister has no idea how many people have fled to Germany from Ukraine.