LOS ANGELES (KNX) - Ukrainian’s refugee crisis shows no signs of slowing as the United Nations reported that almost 3.4 million people have left Ukraine.
“ (Refugees passing through) are coming to Lviv on the train lines that stop here – it’s the closest town to the border- and they transfer over to mini buses or just other people from around Ukraine or from around Europe have come to the border and they’re not ferrying people across,” Phil Ittner, journalist and former CBS reporter in Lviv, told KNX In Depth.
“So it’s a steady stream of people leaving, about a quarter of the entire population, of this country of 40 million plus people are set to be displaced because of this conflict.”
Ittner added the Ukrainian government is working to help those who stayed behind get housing within Ukraine.
“There’s been a strong push by a lot of the humanitarian and aid groups internally within Ukraine, to try and keep the population here,” he said.
“They are afraid of a kind of brain drain happening. As a result, they may go to another country and start a new life and stay there.
There could be a massive Ukrainian diaspora because of this.”
So what could the final outcome of the war look like? According to Ittner, he sees Ukrainians fighting to take back their land.
“(Ukrainians) are determined that they’re going to take back the land that has been seceded to Russia by force. They have always said since 2014 that they intended to take back Crimea,” he said, adding that in his assessment, Russia is highly unlikely to “relinquish control of Crimea.”
Listen to Ittner’s full interview in the audio above.
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