On the list of “I’d guess ol’ Vlad didn’t predict this one:” Hungary (shares a short stretch of border with Ukraine) is welcoming ‘anybody’ into their country.
And this is a country that invited Tucker Carlson to speak, and whose leader (Orbán) seems to feel – constitutionally – about immigrants much the same way that The Orange Menace and Nigel Farage do.
Strange bedfellows, indeed.
[paywalled, but the relevant text is below]
So far, European leaders and communities say they are ready to welcome Ukrainian refugees — including countries such as Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, which have previously hardened their borders and policies in the face of other waves of refugees amid a backlash from the far-right.
These are some of the first scenes of Tucker Carlson’s new “documentary,” boldly titled “Hungary vs. Soros: Fight for Civilization.” Why the quotation marks? Documentaries are supposed to show the truth, but Tucker Carlson’s portrayal of Hungary is quite far from it. And I’m not just talking about the trailer in which the Fox News host refers to Hungary’s southern neighbor as Slovakia. (It is, in fact, Serbia.)
Closer to the topic; what will they make of an influx of Ukrainian refugees landing in the US? I doubt a single Ukrainian arrival (and potential US citizen) is going to be an ardent supporter of the party of Trump.
Several thousand Ukrainians immigrate to the US each year and have for a while. Hell, since 2014 we get something like 3-5k refugees a year. So, not sure what they would base having an issue with bringing in some after this humanitarian disaster.
I don’t really know what those wackadoodles base most of their beliefs on. Certainly not facts. But I’m almost certain the combination of two Trumpist trigger words like “Ukrainian” and “Refugee” will have them foaming at the mouth.
We are (or were) still getting refugees from Ukraine due to Crimea, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some from this as well. Though the majority of those fleeing the fighting will be going into the bordering eastern European countries. My understanding is aid is already on the way to assist those countries in assisting the refugees from Ukraine.
As a general rule such men are not expected to fight, for pretty obvious reasons. If they wish to volunteer a role may be found for them. But I don’t know how the Ukrainians are handling that. I expect it will be not so much general policy but a case-by-case basis with local groups.
In the UK there is a political row brewing about allowing Ukrainians into the UK as refugees.
Immigration policy was thought to be a key concern to voters UK during the Brexit vote. Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary are putting the finishing touches to a Nationality and Borders Bill. This bill has significantly reduced the terms under which anyone can apply to the UK as a Refugee or Asylum seeker. This would make it very difficult for any Ukrainian refugees to be admitted to the UK. The vetting procedures are quite strict.
However…the EU has just announced that Ukrainian refugees will be allowed into EU countries for three years without having to go through a formal process.
Boris Johnson and his cabinet need to make an exception for the Ukrainan refugess pretty darn quick or all the stentorian speeches and rhetoric protesting about Putin’s war in Ukraine is going to ring quite hollow.
Pritti Patel the Home Secretary, really needs to have a word with the Liz Truss, the Foreign secretary, and come up with a cunning plan or else Boris is going to sound like a hypocrite.
If Europe is willing (and able) to absorb the refugees then it’s not an issue. If they aren’t then we can discuss sending some of them outside of Europe.
Personally, I’m totally OK with bringing some over here, and facilitating those wishing to join relatives already here on our side of the world, but my opinion doesn’t make official policy.
A better strategy for Western Europe and North America is to send adequate funding to the bordering countries (Poland, Romania, Hungary, etc.) to settle them there for the duration and use everything we’ve learned in the past two years about “work from home” to keep them employed. A good start would be to beef up the communications and internet infrastructure in those countries. The economic and infrastructure side-benefits to the host countries might help blunt local hostility to the refugees.
There was a post in the Guardian’s live blog a couple days ago about a train that runs between Helsinki and St. Petersburg - it had been running at reduced capacity due to Covid, but the authorities in charge of the line were going to double the number of trains running between the two cities because the current ones had become packed with Russians leaving the country. Only Finnish and Russian nationals can use this train.
If martial law is declared in Russia, though, the number of trains available will no longer matter because no one will be allowed out. Only about a third of Russians have passports as it is.
It makes me wonder how many Ukrainian refugees there will be, the number seems to be over a million so far. The EU will be giving lots of help to Poland to take the majority of them. There is an impressive international effort underway.
While there are lots individual and group fund raising, this is a drop in the ocean compared to what governments can when engaged in a national program. The EU has huge reserves at its disposal.
Before this all started there were roughly 44 million people living in Ukraine and roughly half of them were women/girls and another bunch were boys to young to fight. Potentially multiple millions of refugees. I don’t think it will be tens of millions for reasons too depressing to discuss.