More than five million people have now fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, it has been estimated. The Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said more than half of the total had fled to Poland.
Although many have stayed there, an unknown number have travelled onwards because there are few border checks within the European Union. In addition to the refugees, the UN says that more than seven million people have been displaced within Ukraine.
Ukraine had a pre-war population of 44 million. The nation's government also said its evacuation efforts to bring some civilians out of the war-torn city of Mariupol will resume today. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said there is a “preliminary” agreement to operate a so-called humanitarian corridor westward to the Ukraine-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia.
It will apply to women, children and older people from Wednesday afternoon, she said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have accused Russian forces of bombing a hospital sheltering 300 people in Mariupol.
The deputy commander of the Azov regiment, who was among the troops remaining in Mariupol, said the Russian military dropped heavy bombs on the steel plant and hit an “improvised” hospital. Serhiy Taruta, the former governor of the Donetsk region and a Mariupol native, also reported the bombing of the hospital, where he said 300 people, including wounded troops and civilians with children, were sheltered.
The eastern cities of Kharkiv and Kramatorsk also came under deadly attack. Russia also said it struck areas around Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro west of the Donbas with missiles, although all these reports have yet to be confirmed.
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