Poland will likely absorb most Ukrainian refugees if the crisis builds. But whether the sympathy will remain is a different question.

• Russia's war on Ukraine has caused a mounting humanitarian and refugee crisis.
• The United Nations has said that 100,000 have already fled their homes and millions could be at risk.
• Professor Serena Parekh, a displacement expert, talked to Insider about what is at stake.

During a tragic and whirlwind week of Russian military assault on Ukraine, many in the country have already fled cities that are under Russian attack, mostly heading to the border with Poland.

The European Union, and specifically countries like Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic, made commitments to resettle millions of Ukrainians earlier in the week as Russian troops moved closer to Kyiv, as well as in eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

Professor Serena Parekh, a leading expert in the displacement of refugees at Northeastern University, talked to Insider about how the humanitarian crisis might further affect Ukrainians facing violence.

What are you seeing the first few days in the context of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine?

There's just a lot of confusion. People who have had to flee their homes, but who haven't necessarily crossed the border that would allow them to be considered refugees. This is very common. This is usually what people do in the aftermath of a conflict, is they'll get in their car, they'll get on a train, they'll try to go somewhere else within the country that they maybe have a friend, or a cousin, or someone they can stay. They think they will be able to return home in a few days, or in a couple of weeks. That's what we're seeing now, since yesterday, since things began. We're likely to see that, of course, increase as time goes on, and then for people to feel like there's nowhere in Ukraine that's safe and that they have to cross the border into Poland or Hungary.

The other interesting thing that I actually haven't seen much reporting on is that part of the state of emergency, the martial law that's been imposed on Ukraine means that men between the ages of 18 and 60 aren't allowed to leave the country. They're supposed to stay and fight. I'm not sure how that's impacting people's choices to move, or their decisions to leave and where to go. Of course, we are seeing a lot of people staying and fighting, but that maybe is constraining, where some people feel that they can do, or they should do.

Do you see any trends of people going towards one country as people are evacuating? If they're not internally displaced within the country, like you said.

I think Poland is the likely source. I think Poland itself is preparing for that. They have a number of reception centers along the border to help facilitate people who are able to get to the border, to cross over, and to receive aid. I believe they're also US soldiers at these reception centers to help facilitate an orderly influx of people into Poland in a way that can be managed more without feeling like their people are just getting overwhelmed, or too many people are coming in, or there's not enough places to stay.

A couple of interesting things about this. Well, the first, the first thing is that they're anticipating arrivals, but it's hard to know at this point if they're really prepared for what's likely to be very large numbers of people coming over.

Poland has said they could welcome as many as a million refugees, but it's not clear that they have the capacity at all to do that. They took in 5,000 refugees in all of 2021. I think they would still need a lot of logistical support, financial support, to build that kind of capacity. It's also really striking that they would say something like that, given that Poland and Hungary were among the two most resistant countries to accepting refugees in other contexts, such as Syrian refugees, 2015, 2016, as well as the Syrians who were coming through Poland-Belarus last year.

Yeah, I was actually about to ask you about that, how do you interpret that?

Yeah. It's really, really interesting, isn't it? I can see two important dimensions of the difference. One has to do with the fact that Ukrainians are fleeing a common enemy. Russia, they are our enemy. They're Poland's enemy. The US's enemy, now that they've launched this war of aggression. Historically, refugees who are coming from countries that we consider enemies have been more sympathetically received, as opposed to countries that are either considered friendly, or neutral. People don't really see any connection or we don't have a great stake or interest in. That definitely speaks to the fact that people are like, "Yes, we will take you in. We'll stand in solidarity with you. It affirms, yet again, how bad the actions of Russia are.

That's on the one hand. On the other hand, I think part of the war ... One of the effects because might have hoped for this invasion is the chaos that refugee crises often bring, perhaps the hopes that Europe wouldn't be prepared for it. This would undermine Europe in some important way, thereby furthering his claims about the limits of liberal democracy, but it's hard to ignore what I think is the obvious difference, which is that Europeans are likely to see Ukrainians as similar to them in morally relevant ways. This gives rise to this feeling of sympathy, connection, and perhaps responsibility.

Ukrainians are white for the most part, they're mostly Christian and they're perceived to be Europeans. That is I think a really important difference. You can interpret that in two ways, I think. One is the sense that racism, xenophobia, that has really come to the forefront in the last 10 years or so around refugees, is really playing a role in how people perceive these crises, the difference in these crises. In another sense, there's a very human impulse to be sympathetic to people that you perceive as being like you, or as connected to you as say, fellow Christians, fellow Europeans, and so forth. It's a strong impulse, and it is definitely noticeable in the responses, in the aftermath of these crises.

What do you see as the US's role in the developing humanitarian crisis, in terms of working with the partner European countries, setting reception centers, and helping process people? Do you think the US will also resettle Ukrainians?

I think it'll have to be both, especially if the crisis ends up lasting — being a long-enduring crisis — if Russia does end up succeeding and taking over Ukraine and occupying it. It's very likely that people who leave won't be able to go back, or will believe that they can't go back safely, and probably with very good reason. We can think of the role the US will play as having two temporal dimensions. I think in the short term, it will be absolutely showing up for the countries in Eastern Europe that will be the countries of first reception, financial aid, logistical aid, and even there are soldiers there who are helping out right now. I think that will have to continue. Helping European countries where Ukrainians are likely to go, and to settle in the short term, as well.

In the US, they could implement some kind of TPS status for Ukrainians who are currently in the US. They could put parole into the US, Ukrainians who are already in the process, who have already applied for a visa, such as through family reunification. They could just fast-track that, as it were, and let those Ukrainians into the US. But in the long term, Amnesty International has said that we can anticipate, depending on how this goes, between one and 5 million Ukrainians as being refugees, and permanently in need of a home.

If that's the case, I think there are two roles the US can play. One is absolutely to resettle Ukrainian refugees, as part of the resettlement programs. I think the number of refugees from each region is capped, I think it's capped at 10,000 from Europe right now. Biden could raise that, or he could parole refugees directly in the way he did Afghan refugees.

Just a footnote about that. Refugee organizations are still trying to resettle the Afghans who came in August, in September. Because the refugee settlement program had been so dismantled under the Trump administration, because of COVID and other factors, it's been really hard for them to find places for refugees to live and start their lives again.

But the other thing, I think, the other role, I think the US could play really effectively is a leadership role in working out a global process for resettlement of refugees. After the Hungarian revolution and the Russian invasion that followed us, the US coordinated the resettlement of refugees from Hungary so that after a few months, several hundred thousand refugees had found new homes. I think when we talk about resettling refugees in the US, what we focus on is how many can we resettle? Should we resettle? Very important questions, but I think it ignores this other question, which is what's the larger role we could play as leaders in the global community, in facilitating homes for refugees?

That's what I'd like to see the US doing, is just saying, "Okay, look, we have this many refugees. We can absolutely resettle them in an orderly way if we can just get other countries on board to do that."

And are there specific factors within Ukraine that could complicate the crisis?

I'm not sure about the factors within Ukraine, but we know that the Putin regime doesn't have any problem with harming civilians. That will make it difficult, both for people to move around within the country, civilians to move around within the country, and for humanitarian groups to function safely within Ukraine, who are currently there.

Humanitarian agencies, they're very worried about the capacity to function. Without these independent organizations, internally displaced people will have very, very little aid. I know the Ukrainian government opened shelters for people who thought that their homes were unsafe, but just anecdotally, hearing people interviewed, they don't feel safe in them. They think they're too crowded. They're unsanitary. They don't have proper toilets for the number of people who need to use them. It's hard to blame the government. They have other things they're thinking about besides how to help civilians.

But nonetheless, it's going to create the sense that people have to leave, and people are on their own and without aid, and of course, the most vulnerable people in those societies, in that group, will end up being the most impacted as they are everywhere. There are just, just as a side note, there are non-Ukrainians, non-ethnic Ukrainians in Ukraine, who will be affected by this. There are Indians and Africans in Ukraine. Their ability to leave the country will also be ... It will be interesting to see how that plays out in terms of the reception that they get in Europe.

That's a good point too. Are there trends that you think that people should be really aware of that are not really getting enough coverage within what's going on in Ukraine right now?

Well, what I'm following is how the positive sentiment for refugees will be sustained in the near future, and then in the medium to long term future. I feel like right now, everyone's glued to the news about what's happening in Ukraine. Poland, and Hungary, and the US are ready for refugees. The head of the EU has spoken very positively about refugees. I'm curious to see how that will play out as time goes by. In a week or two, when the crisis is continuing, people will probably be coming over in even larger numbers than they are now. Once that happens, it will be interesting to see whether or not the sense of solidarity and compassion is able to be maintained.

This question of solidarity, I find really, really interesting. We want to be in solidarity with Ukraine and how will this translate into policies, especially for Ukrainians?

I worry also, if the invasion is successful and Putin takes over, will borders close? Will it be a situation where people can be shot for trying to leave the country, which is going to be terrifying on its own.