German minister urges equal distribution of Ukrainian refugees

Some EU nations should do more to relieve pressure from fellow member states that have taken in large numbers of Ukrainians fleeing the conflict with Russia, Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has said.

Better coordination between EU countries would be required if the escalation of the situation in Ukraine causes another wave of refugees, Faeser said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

"Poland has so far taken in more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees – Spain 160,000. It can't remain this way," she stated.

Germany itself has accepted more than one million Ukrainians since the outbreak of the conflict almost a year ago. According to Faeser, eight in ten refugees who came to the country in 2022 were from Ukraine.

Figures released by the UN earlier this week suggested that some eight million Ukrainians became refugees due to the fighting, with at least 4.8 million of them applying for temporary registration in the EU.

Security sources told TASS news agency in late January that Russia had taken in more than 5.2 million refugees from Ukraine, including some 730,000 children, since the start of the conflict. Around 4,000 people from the country have been entering Russian territory on a daily basis, with 987 temporary housing facilities set up for them, the sources said.