Two Million People Have Fled Ukraine, Says U.N.

The number of people fleeing the war in Ukraine has reached two million, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday, as the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II picked up pace.

The UNHCR estimates that on top of the two million who have left Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his onslaught 13 days ago, a further one million have fled their homes and become internally displaced.

“We initially estimated four million people could end up fleeing the country and we fear that number can certainly go up,” said Christina Pirovolakis, UNHCR spokeswoman in London.

In the first seven days of the war, the UNHCR said one million people had left Ukraine as refugees, five days later that number has doubled. The Balkan Wars in the early 1990s saw a total of 1.5 million refugees, Ms. Pirovolakis said.

More than half of the Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighboring Poland. Others have gone into Romania, Moldova among other countries and almost 100,000 have entered Russia.