After the 24th of February, every third Ukrainian citizen was forced to abandon their home, fleeing from war.
More than half of them — just a little less than nine million people — moved to other countries.
Some of those who left have already returned, but the majority are still abroad.
In today's video we will talk about how various European countries help the refugees.
This is not an instruction for Ukrainians on getting help from Europe however.
It’s an important example for us Russians on how humanity-oriented states show care for people.
Even when those people are not their citizens.
Let me begin with a story of a certain person, a story she shared with our editorial.
She is Maria Rozenfield, 26 years old.
In 2019, Maria graduated from the Faculty of Psychology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Before the war, she lived in Kyiv, where she worked not only in her specialty,
but also worked on Jewish youth projects and taught Russian at the private school "Altera"
on the Avenue of the Heroes of Stalingrad.
I’ll say it again slowly, just in case.
Until the beginning of the “liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis”,
Maria worked at events for Jewish youth and taught children the Russian language
at a Kyiv school on the Avenue of the Heroes of Stalingrad.
When the war started, Maria moved away from the bombings — out of city, to her boyfriend’s house.
This decision almost turned out to be fatal:
the young man lived in the village of Vorzel, which borders the infamous Bucha.
During the first days of the so-called “Special Operation”, “liberators” destroyed three neighboring houses.
One shell fell just 20 meters from a House where Maria lived.
The blast wave broke all the windows.
Then a Russian tank drove right through the backyard, knocking down the fence.
Maria moved to neighbors, who had a cellar which could serve as a shelter.
But the shelter turned into a trap.
Russian soldiers walked into the house, heard that someone was there,
and mined the exit from the basement.
The people sitting inside saw it through the gap between the boards.
After some time, when Russian soldiers entered the house again,
Maria and her neighbors persuaded them to clear the exit.
Russian soldiers didn’t hurt Maria.
Even gave her dry ration and explained to her that they are here to save her from the Nazi regime.
But her boyfriend's house was ransacked clean.
And they shot their beloved dog.
When the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to drive Russian troops from near Kyiv,
Maria was on the line of fire.
Fleeing from the explosions, she had a bad fall and injured her knees.
She is still recovering from the effects of her injury.
Together with her acquaintances, Maria got out of the war zone in a private car and drove to Chisinau,
and from there she moved to London.
Maria applied from Chisinau, and received a visa to the UK in twelve days.
Maria Rosenfield got into the Home for Ukrainians program.
She settled in the house of one of the many London families
who expressed a desire to host Ukrainian refugees.
Maria has a separate room in London, with her own shower.
By the rules of the program, she can live there for 6 months at a minimum.
Maria also received a bank card with 300 pounds on it.
She recently submitted documents to the employment center.
Until Maria finds a job, she will receive a monthly allowance of three hundred pounds.
And if she does and her salary is lower than the living salary, she will be paid the missing amount as monthly allowance.
Today, citizens of Ukraine are given discounts in various shops and free tickets to various cultural events.
If a Ukrainian wants to organize something to support compatriots,
there is a chance to receive a grant from the budget.
Also there are free language courses in London for refugees from Ukraine, as well as free psychological assistance.
Maria is volunteering now, offering psychological assistance to her compatriots.
Let’s move from Great Britain to Germany now. But first, a short commercial.
ADS
So Germany.
The official website of Berlin has a page in four languages: Ukrainian, Russian, English and German.
It is a detailed guide for refugees from Ukraine.
On the top is the telephone number of a special hotline.
It works without weekends and in each of the four languages.
Let’s check the guide.
At the moment, Ukrainian refugees can enter any region of Germany without a visa.
And it’s not necessary for the refugee to be a Ukrainian citizen.
For example, if the war caught a Russian citizen with a Ukrainian residence permit on the territory of Ukraine,
then this rule also applies. At least until August 31 of this year.
Directly under the memo on the official website of Berlin, with true German pedantry,
instructions for refugees are posted for almost all occasions.
How to get medical help, including pregnant women,cancer patients,
people in need of hemodialysis or psychological support.
How to find housing if you have children or pets, what kind of help people with disabilities
and LGBT people can get.
There is even an article containing everyday advice: how to acquire a SIM card,
open a bank account, exchange currency and so on.
All these instructions are also available in four languages.
That’s how you show care for people.
The refugee arrival center is located in the building of the former Berlin-Tegel airport.
There you can get the war refugee status, which is valid in all EU countries.
In Berlin, refugees have a right for a job
— and they receive the same labor protection guarantees that German citizens have.
However if a refugee has no relatives or friends in Berlin, they can be moved to some other city in Germany.
According to Deutsche Welle, more than seventy percent of refugees from Ukraine have higher education,
which gives them good chances in the local labor market.
About three hundred professions in Germany do not require any proof of qualification.
In other cases, you can request the recognition of a Ukrainian diploma in a special organization
the Permanent Conference of Ministers of Education and Culture of the federal lands.
The organization’s website made a separate page in Ukrainian for convenience.
If you didn’t manage to get the recognition of a diploma, you can pass exams and verify your qualification this way.
Before recording this video, we’ve contacted a woman from Kharkiv,
who moved to Germany at the beginning of the war and now lives in Halle.
Here’s what she told us.
At the beginning, refugees were housed in stadiums.
Today it’s hotels and villas, many Ukrainians are offered by German families to live with them.
All refugees receive an allowance
which depends on various parameters like age, health, children and so on.
Residence permits are issued for a period of one to two years.
Until June, free public transport was available for refugees.
Now for 9 euros they can buy a monthly pass that is valid throughout Germany.
I am recording this video in the capital of Poland, Warsaw.
It was in Poland that the main flow of refugees from Ukraine poured in.
According to the UN Office for Refugees, more than four million people came here.
At the peak, the number of people who crossed the border reached one hundred people every day.
Not all remained in Poland though — many moved on to other countries.
Newcomers received starter money from the Polish government, 300 zlotys,
that’s approximately four thousand rubles.
Beyond that, for 120 days each Ukrainian family willing to shelter refugees from Ukraine,
was paid a daily allowance of 40 zloty per person.
That’s 520 rubles every day, or 15 thousand and a half rubles every month.
he allowance was canceled after the 1st of July.
The reason for this is simple: the Republic of Poland is far from being the wealthiest country in Europe.
For four months it was helping refugees at the limit of its financial capacity.
Some refugees manage to get financial support from the abovementioned UN department for refugees.
An interesting detail by the way: if you view the organization’s website in English, French, or Arabic,
then right on the frontpage there is a call to make a donation for refugees from Ukraine.
The Russian and Spanish version however ask to help people from Afghanistan and Latin America.
Keep that in mind if you plan to make a donation through the UN.
Poland’s financial resources are quite limited,
and the number of refugees now accounts for 5-10 percent of the country’s total population.
This is a lot. But the country keeps doing everything to support people who fled the war.
For example, just recently the Polish parliament has adopted a special law:
it ensures that refugees have access to the labor market, medical services, and child allowances.
And keep in mind that private initiative is a big thing in European democracies.
There are private foundations and public organizations operating in Poland.
Thus, Ukrainians are supported by the local Belarusian diaspora.
They collect money, food and basic necessities for them.
Moreover, belorussian IT specialists created the icanhelp.host website,
where people can offer and search free housing.
Great Britain, Germany, and Poland are countries that truly live by the principle of “we don’t abandon our own”.
There, governments care for their citizens and every day let them know:
you have a home, you have your country!
Poland and Germany have had repatriation programs for ethnic Poles and Germans for many years.
Great Britain offers privileges for citizens of 50 countries that used to be British colonies.
Some citizens of the Commonwealth can even vote and be elected in Great Britain itself.
While not abandoning “their own”, these (and others too) European countries spread humanistic values to “outsiders”.
Yes, to them, Ukrainian citizens are not quite “their own”.
But they are still humans, and caring for human lives and well-being
is at the core of the European values that are for some reason mocked in modern Russia.
Israel doesn’t abandon “its own”, too.
True, Israel has a special policy: it’s accepting ethnic jews from Ukraine.
Being a home for all jews — this is Israel’s philosophy.
And living by this philosophy, the country does everything in its power to help jewish refugees from Ukraine.
At the beginning of the war, Israeli social networks were covered with a photo:
Orthodox Jews, despite Shabbat, coordinate the movement of refugees by phone.
By the norms of Judaism, you cannot use the phone on the Sabbath,
but to save lives, the rules can and should be broken.
Among the developed countries with high living standards, Lithuania deserves a special mention.
Not only does it accept citizens of Ukraine, but also Russians.
The Lithuanian Republic has sheltered many from the Russian opposition,
almost the whole of Navalny’s team is there now, and keeps working from there.
And unlike other Baltic states, Lithuania doesn’t have infamous non-citizen passports.
Meanwhile tens of millions of Russians feel like they are non-citizens in their own country.
They don’t have and never had what a British, a German, a Pole, or an Israelite has.
The feeling of “this is my country and i can count on it”.
We see how other countries treat refugees from Ukraine.
How they spend huge sums of money from the budget on supporting them.
How bureaucracy shows its human side and works for the well-being of people.
And then we see how people are treated in Russia.
Say, before the war there were many articles about
how incredibly difficult it is to receive Russian citizenship for ethnic Russians
who fled Central Asia into Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Not only the liberal Meduza wrote about Russians abandoned by the Russian officialdom,
people living with no paper and no rights.
The ultra-patriotic Tsargrad and Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote about it too,
as well as Argumenty I Fakty and even Russia Today which aren’t exactly opposition.
All to no effect.
There is also a matter of how refugees from North Korea or Taliban occupied Afghanistan
are sent back from Russia to a certain death.
For years, our country taught Ukrainians on how they should live.
It got so carried away by it that it started killing them
just for the crime of living in a waythat people in the Kremlin don’t see as acceptable.
But it’s Russia who needs norms of civilized life established, not other countries.
I think it is now clear how Russia itself needs those norms.
And we will establish them.
We have the right examples before our eyes.
See you tomorrow!