Millions of people are fleeing, many in the country itself and especially in the European Union, but also in Russia. The Russian authorities spoke of more than 3.2 million refugees in early August. The number cannot be verified.
The Ukrainian government repeatedly accuses Moscow of abducting people and keeping them in “filtration camps”. Human rights activists also complain that Ukrainians are often forced to leave their country for Russia. In Russia there are also many private aid initiatives for Ukrainian refugees. Numerous Ukrainians find refuge from the fighting with relatives in Russia.
A few days ago, six months after the invasion of Ukraine, Putin ordered money payments for people in occupied territories. In the occupied parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv, as well as in Zaporizhia and Cherson in the south, parents of children between the ages of 6 and 18 are to receive a one-time payment of 10,000 rubles. Moscow has repeatedly been criticized for tying Ukrainians to itself with money, for example, but also by issuing Russian passports.