The Ukrainian invasion has impacts beyond the Ukrainian borders. We are now seeing mass migration and a refugee crisis in Europe-the largest refugee movement in Europe since WWII. 

From The Wall Street Journal.

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More than two million people have fled the war in Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his onslaught in the country on Feb. 24, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency.

The speed and scale of the exodus has outstripped any such movement of people seen since World War II, according to the UNHCR, and is set to grow as the Russian assault on Ukrainian cities and civilians continues.

Successive efforts to set up evacuation routes out of civilian areas in Ukrainian cities under Russian fire have collapsed. The most recent on Tuesday saw one civilian convoy escape the besieged city of Sumy only for Russian shelling at the city’s exit to halt the effort. Local authorities said the evacuation would resume later in the day. . . .

Some 2,011,312 people have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, according to UNHCR, as of March 8. A further one million are estimated to have been forced from their homes and internally displaced, the agency says.

The numbers are fluid and fast moving, said Christine Pirovolakis, spokeswoman for the UNHCR in London. She said initial estimates that the war could create four million refugees could be exceeded.

It took one week for the refugee numbers to hit one million, the agency said. In just five days since then, that figure has doubled.

Most of the refugees are women and children because of a law in Ukraine that prevents Ukrainian men of fighting age from leaving the country.

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(Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal.  Photo Credit: Getty Images)