section_path: Impacts/Refugee crisis
section_name: Refugee crisis
paragraph_text: Refugee crisis
  
  The war has caused the largest refugee and humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. In the first week of the invasion, the UN reported over a million refugees had fled Ukraine; this reached over eight million by February 2023. In May 2022, following an influx of military equipment into Ukraine, a significant number of refugees sought to return to regions relatively isolated from the invasion front in southeastern Ukraine. By 3 May, another 8 million people were displaced inside Ukraine.
  
  Most refugees were women, children, elderly, or disabled. Most male Ukrainian nationals aged 18 to 60 were denied exit from Ukraine as part of mandatory conscription, unless they were responsible for the financial support of three or more children, single fathers, or were the parent/guardian of children with disabilities. Many Ukrainian men, including teenagers, opted to remain in Ukraine voluntarily to join the resistance.
  
  According to the UN High Commission for Refugees as of May 2022, there were 3,315,711 refugees in Poland, 901,696 in Romania, 594,664 in Hungary, 461,742 in Moldova, 415,402 in Slovakia, and 27,308 in Belarus, while Russia reported it had received over 800,104 refugees. By July 2022, over 390,000 Ukrainian refugees had arrived in the Czech Republic, where the average refugee was a woman accompanied by a child. These refugees were twice as likely to have a college degree as the Czech population as a whole. Turkey registered more than 58,000 Ukrainian refugees as of March 2022. The EU invoked the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time, granting Ukrainian refugees the right to live and work in the EU for up to three years. Britain has accepted 146,379 refugees, as well as extending the ability to remain in the UK for three years with broadly similar entitlements as the EU, three years residency and access to state welfare and services.
  
  According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russia has engaged in "massive deportation" of over 1.3 million Ukrainian civilians, potentially constituting crimes against humanity. The OSCE and Ukraine have accused Russia of forcibly moving civilians to filtration camps in Russian-held territory, and then into Russia. Ukrainian sources have compared this policy to Soviet-era population transfers and Russian actions in the Chechen War of Independence. For instance, as of April 2022, Russia claimed to have evacuated about 121,000 Mariupol residents to Russia. RIA Novosti and Ukrainian officials said that thousands were dispatched to centres in cities in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine, from which people were sent to economically depressed regions of Russia.