More than 5 million people have fled to neighboring countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the UN, with Poland having welcomed 2,867,241 refugees as of 24 April. The EU has announced that Ukrainians may receive temporary residency for three years across all of the 27 member states.
According to Eurostat a total of 1.35 million Ukrainian citizens held a valid residence permit of an EU member state by the end of 2020. Poland gave out the highest number of residence permits to Ukrainian citizens of the EU member states by the end of 2020, having provided documentation to a total of 499,536 people. According to the institute, seasonal or temporary permits issued to Ukrainian workers made up a significant number of these.
When taking into consideration the total population size of each country, the numbers tell a slightly different story. Although Czechia provided 165,572 permits - only a third of the number Poland offered - because of its smaller population size, that equates to 16 Ukrainian inhabitants for every 1,000 inhabitants, versus Poland’s 13.
