Romanian here.
Our government said we could host up to 500.000 refugees.
I doubt we could do that, but I'm sure they have enough spaces right now for all reffugees.
The news is that no ukrainian refugees want to stay in romanian provided places at the moment -- they either have relatives/friends where they'll be staying with or they immediately want to go to wealthier countries in Central/Western Europe.
That could probably change as more ukrainians flee -- those desperate and those that have no friends or means to travel to other parts.
I've seen footage of ukrainian mothers WALKING for two hours to the border with their children, it broke my heart.
I'm reading Eric Schlosser's Command and Control right now (1). Housing becomes quite elastic in the face of bombing. Fred Iklé actually developed a formula based on WW2 Germany for RAND:
Fully compensating increase in housing density = (P1 - F) / (H2) - (P1 / H1)
* P1 = Population of city before destruction
* P2 = Population of city after destruction
* H1 = Housing units before destruction
* H2 = Housing units after destruction
* F = Fatalities
The tipping point seemed to be reached when about 70% of a city's homes were destroyed. That's when people began to leave en masse and seek shelter in the countryside.
Glad you're geographically in a position where you can help. You should start a gofundme or something on here so that people can send you money to help the people you encounter.
My great grandmother walked from Ukraine to Germany with my grandmother who was a little child when world war II happened. Unfortunately my great grandmother was killed in Germany by the Stasi who said she had jumped from a window. My grandmother knew better because she saw and our whole family knows what really happened now.
I am now sitting in my car at the border at Medyka. I have been here all day. I am helping two Ukrainian women evacuate, and I will bring them to safety deeper into Poland. Traffic is at a standstill on the Ukrainian side, so these two women have had to continue on foot for the last 26km over the border. It is cold, and they are hungry, and they are carrying luggage. I have seen small children walking and dragging suitcases behind them.
It’s a real crisis.
There are humanitarian aid workers here, and mainstream media from around the world. You might see me standing in the background on NBC today; not sure. I don’t see much in the way of housing facilities here at the border, but there are buses constantly shuttling people from the border over to the nearest larger town.
To what extent do you feel that the sense of security there (disbelief this attack would happen) stemmed from the belief that Western interests would serve as an effective deterrent? Or do you attribute it to something else?
I'm ashamed that my government (Australia) has done so little in response. 10 days ago the government was touting how they'd offered online cybersecurity training for Ukraine. It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.
There should have been far greater support with defenses in place to effectively mitigate the risk. Did the West seriously take Putin for his word that he would respect Ukraine's borders and is the best we have in response sanctions? On top of that, Biden said that personal sanctions against Putin are still on the table [1]. Not done already? Doesn't this effectively amount to a green light to the effect of "Yes we're pissed, but its ok, just don't do something really crazy and we won't punish you personally".
I'm really sorry you've had to leave your country. I don't suggest troops or NATO getting involved. I don't have an answer that is better, but I'm pointing out that the lack of planning is simply astonishing. It's tragic that the people of Ukraine are paying for that.
None of my friends in Ukraine believed this would happen. I was often met with "Oh… You shouldn't believe everything you see in the media…".
I am devastated.