What Ukrainian refugees were promised
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2022
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Today on “Post Reports,” how the chaos of war can put even well-intentioned efforts to help Ukrainian refugees on unstable ground.
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It’s been 300 days since the start of the war in Ukraine. And since that war began, millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes to seek safety in Western Europe.
Back in March, the leaders of European Union countries pledged to help Ukrainians by enacting their Temporary Protection Directive for the first time. This gave refugees access to housing, health care, education and the labor markets of the countries they arrived in.
But temporary protection has been far from a golden ticket.
Today on “Post Reports,” we hear from producer Rennie Svirnovskiy about how refugees have fared at a transit center on Ukraine’s border with Poland. And we hear from Rick Noack about why many Ukrainian refugees scattered across Europe are still waiting for the help they were promised.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Give a helping hand this holiday season with the Washington Post helping hand. |
| 0:04.6 | This is John Kelly and I'm writing about Bread for the City, Friendship Place, and Miriam's Kitchen over the next few weeks. |
| 0:11.1 | Go to posthelpinghand.com to learn more and donate today. |
| 0:18.0 | It has been 300 days since Russian forces invaded Ukraine. |
| 0:22.5 | And there's a scene that has played out so many times as Ukrainians have left in search of safety. |
| 0:28.3 | Our producer, Rene Sfernovsky, has been listening to tape shared with us by volunteers who've been helping to resettle refugees. |
| 0:36.0 | One conversation I heard was between a volunteer and a refugee who arrived in Poland. |
| 0:41.2 | She'd been traveling with her large family and they were looking for a place to stay. |
| 0:45.8 | The woman's name is Marta. The volunteer didn't get her last name. |
| 0:52.3 | Here she's saying, God, I've lost track of my thoughts. |
| 0:55.7 | And the volunteer tells her it's okay and asks where Marta had come from. |
| 1:11.2 | Marta and her family had come from Theriansk, a town in eastern Ukraine that had been heavily shelled. |
| 1:16.2 | She says they just wanted to get to a place where they could calm down and finally be safe. |
| 1:32.2 | They wound up at a train station in a Polish city. |
| 1:34.6 | There was a refugee shelter nearby set up in an old grocery store building. |
| 1:39.4 | But it was closed for cleaning. So they were left to sleep at the station. |
| 1:43.4 | And I saw photos of them, this family of 11, including kids sleeping on the floor on flat and cardboard boxes with nowhere to go. |
| 1:54.6 | Back in March, leaders of European Union countries pledged to give immediate aid to those displaced by the war. |
| 2:00.7 | We have activated the so-called temporary protection directive for the very first time in the history of the European Union. |
| 2:09.5 | This gives all Ukrainian immediately residency rights. |
| 2:14.2 | We're also working to ensure that other supports are available to people arriving here, including access to health, social care, services and education. |
| 2:25.4 | But as 2022 comes to an end, many EU countries are struggling to fulfill those commitments, which makes the situation for these refugees more challenging. |
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