United Nations: More than 6 million people have been displaced from Ukraine

On May 12, the UN said a total of 6,029,705 people had left Ukraine as of May 11.

According to the UN agency’s website, many of the refugees have traveled to Kiev’s neighbors before traveling to Europe, with Poland having the largest number of Ukrainians. Women and children make up 90% of the refugees, this is because Ukrainian men aged 18-60 are unable to leave the country due to military service.

The daily flow of refugees across the Ukrainian border has decreased significantly since the outbreak of hostilities. In March 2022, nearly 3.4 million Ukrainians fled the country. That number dropped to about 1.5 million by April 2022.

Since the beginning of May 2022, nearly 493,000 Ukrainians have sought asylum abroad, and the United Nations estimates that more than 8 million could leave Ukraine this year.

Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told Reuters on May 12 that his country had spent $8.3 billion on the war with Russia. The minister said the expenditure covers everything from buying and repairing weapons to providing emergency assistance to refugees in the country. According to figures from Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, there are 2.7 million people officially registered as refugees in the country, although the real number is believed to be many times higher.

Mr. Marchenko added that Kiev desperately needs support from abroad because they are being forced to spend billions of dollars more.

The population of Ukraine before the war was 37 million, excluding the annexed Crimea and the two eastern regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists.