British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a visit to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday that a humanitarian crisis on NATO’s eastern border would have to be seriously considered if more than 100,000 Russian soldiers invade Ukraine.
The British fear a ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Eastern Europe if large numbers of Ukrainians try to flee to its western neighbours. The thousand British soldiers are being prepared for deployment in countries such as Poland and Romania, both NATO members.
The Pentagon and US intelligence agencies are predicting that a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine will displace some five million civilians to neighboring countries. This would emerge from the latest analysis of the situation, reported the Washington Post Sunday. Congressmen were briefed about this over the weekend by the army’s top. Most refugees will try to flee to Poland, according to the US.
Today’s crisis is not solely about avoiding the blood-soaked tragedy of another Russian invasion of Ukraine – heartrending though that prospect is – but about preserving the essential principles that allow nations to live in peace and freedom.
@WSJ https://t.co/jtm58fYuVZ— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 10, 2022
‘Worst scenario’
Poland said Tuesday it was preparing for a large number of refugees, possibly one million. “We have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” Maciej Wasik, Secretary of State for the Interior, said on Polish radio. “We have taken measures to be prepared for a wave of possibly one million people.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also warned in December of a refugee influx of millions of civilians. He said an invasion “will plunge all of Europe into crisis.” The sudden appearance of three to five million Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion would be just one of many major concerns facing European society,” Reznikov said.
About 2.9 million inhabitants of eastern Ukraine are already dependent on humanitarian aid, including from the UN, because of the violence that erupted there after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
Citizens USA
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that some of the 1,700 US military personnel sent to Poland are being prepared to help US citizens fleeing Ukraine. They must remain on the Polish side of the border in the event of an invasion, because President Biden has ruled out the deployment of US combat troops in Ukraine in the event of a war. These are airborne troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, an elite unit.
The number of American citizens in Ukraine is estimated at 30,000. “I cannot rule out that these soldiers could be used to some extent to assist with evacuations,” said a Pentagon spokesman. He responded to a message from The Wall Street Journal that President Biden has approved a Pentagon plan to set up tent camps and other facilities on the Polish side of the border to accommodate American citizens.
After a conversation with his British colleague Liz Truss on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the stories about an invasion as ‘pure propaganda’. He said Moscow will not be lectured by the West. Truss warned Lavrov, yet another Western politician, that Russia will pay a high financial and economic price for an invasion. ‘Ideological narratives, ultimatums and moralizing lead nowhere’, says Lavrov.