time for a quick check of the headlines here on al jazeera. residents in the ukrainian port city of mariupol are again bombarding them a day after attacking a maternity hospital. muska says the hospital was being used by fighters. >> we have no gas. we are freezing. we have no food. trees have been cut, bodies are being buried in the yards. it is so scary. we cannot live like this.

>> we are being bound from all directions. pray for mothers with children, please. it is very hard. >> russian and ukrainian foreign ministers meeting in turkey have failed to agree how to stop the fighting. these were the most high-level discussions between the two sides since russia's invasion. >> this meeting was both -- this conversation was both easy and difficult. easy because minister lavrov basically followed his traditional narratives about ukraine. difficult because i did my best to at least find a diplomatic solution to the humanitarian tragedy unfolding on the battleground. >> russia says it has allowed a ukrainian repair team to restore

lost power to chernobyl. russian troops have now seized the defunct plant. that's where the world's worst nuclear disaster happened in 1986. the developments have alarmed the nuclear united nations watchdog. in other news, the pentagon says north korea has tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile system. with one official describing it as a serious escalation. the missile was first displayed in 2020 and tested in february and march this year. north korea says the test will focus on developing a reconnaissance satellite. those were the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera after "inside story." state tune. thanks for watching. -- stay tuned. >> north korea's latest nuclear

exercise, the largest since the cold war, has taken on new meaning after russia's invasion of ukraine. >> as russia's invasion of ukraine rages, millions of refugees are seeking safety outside the country. european countries are welcoming them so far, but how many ukrainians can they receive, and could this signal a new migration policy? this is "inside story." hello and welcome to the program. the russian invasion of ukraine is in its third week with no sign of a let up. the united nations is warning the humanitarian crisis could grow and affect millions more. the united nations' high commissioner for refugees says

more than 2 million people have now fled the fighting. it has been described as europe's worst refugee crisis since world war ii. people are now crossing to neighboring countries to the west such as romania, slovakia, hungary, and moldova, but most of the refugees are in poland. the government has said to host the all, it will need more money than the eu is offering. 230 5000 people have gone to other european countries. the conflict in ukraine is affecting large numbers of children as well. according to unicef, more than one million refugees are minors. many are unaccompanied, either separated from their parents or separated from those forced to stay behind. the united nations has urged host countries to ensure their safety. let's bring in our guest now.

he is the head of news and media . we have the senior policy analyst at migration policy, and a professor of forced migration and international affairs at oxford university, who is also the author of "wealth of refugees: how displaced people can build economies." good to have you all with us. how bad is the situation where you are right now? we are talking about a total of 2 million people who have fled in the space of two weeks. talk to us about the conditions and the challenges they are facing. >> as you said, the numbers are now quite comfortably over 2 million, and poland in

particular has been very generous, and there's about 1.4 million refugees who have come to this country, and significant numbers in those other countries around the region, but also importantly, increasing numbers who have moved on to western europe following this implementation or agreement of this temporary protection status. here today, it is a little quieter than it has been in previous days. we are not entirely sure why that is, but in of the factors could be the fact that it is very cold at the border just 10 or so miles from me, so that may have dissuaded people from trying to cross. it is hard to say how the trend will go. that depends on the conflict and how that evolves, but the immediate needs are obviously food, shelter, warmth, medical

attention. the poles here have been trying to take that away from the border area and are allowing a model whereby they will offer full security state services to those who opt to stay here. that is just the kind of policy that we would advocate and we warmly welcome what they have done so far. >> what is it that ordinary people can do to help ukrainians , beyond governments and government policies and financial assistance? from the people you have seen there and the biggest needs for them right now. there has been this great outpouring of sympathy throughout europe. what can ordinary europeans do? >> here in poland in particular, the local humanitarians have come out en masse.

they have gone out to the border to help with information, to help with transport. we see them at the train stations providing water, providing support, and providing information they will need to decide where they will go next. in terms of the public at large in europe, i think initially, we would probably say the financial side is important. there are a number of appeals. more money will be needed. those appeals will increase, so that is very important, and the public, as you said, have been very generous so far. as refugees have increasingly moved to the west and other countries, there are other things people can do. they will be volunteering, helping with education, translation, again, fundraising, just helping refugees to find their feet and integrate in those societies. unfortunately, this is not going to be very short-term. it is going to be a bit longer, we think. >> he mentioned this eu

protection directive, which has been activated. it was not activated back in 2015 during the refugee crisis there when we saw people coming from -- escaping the war in syria and iraq and afghanistan. why is that? why is it being activated now? >> i think first a bit of background on this temporary protection directive. it was adapted after the wars in the balkans in the 1990's. it was the idea that the eu should adapt to accommodate a rather large flow of refugees. it was the idea that i have the access to residential rights, right to eat, right to work, right to welfare. a key factor in the decision is that you are creating a massive

backlog in the system. as several european officials said last week, it has cut the red tape and saved the system from being completely overwhelmed. as you mentioned, there have been discussions in the past to trigger this directive. for us, it felt like it would never be activated. it has been a bit forgotten, and yet, last week, eu members came together that have repeatedly hosted refugees across the eu, and they agreed that they needed this to respond to what looks like one of the largest displacement crises in europe. >> more broadly speaking, what do you think of the political implications of all of this, this influx of refugees that we

have seen just in the last two weeks, and what it reveals about europe, the response that we have seen? >> i think we should celebrate the great solidarity we have seen across europe towards ukrainian refugees. it has been fantastic to see signs of commitment, empathy, solidarity, every day humanitarian response -- everyday humanitarian response. that is something very important. behind that, this is not the type of response we see to all refugees in europe. it is not the type of response we sought to syrian refugees or afghan refugees, and equally, we see significant selectivity. african refugees often face drowning, detention, deportation, so the hope is that this moment of solidarity, public support for refugees can be carried across to other

refugee populations. i think one of the challenges is that while the humanitarian response in the short-term seems very strong, the longer-term challenge will be -- can we make this a sustainable response? can we provide the support needed for frontline countries so that they can sustain hosting refugees for the medium to long-term? can they get access to financial support to buttress their public services? health care, education will be put under significant pressure, and housing, for instance, and can we create a viable relocation seen that europe has rarely been able to agree upon, to relocate some of the refugees from those countries across the 27 eu states and beyond? there will be questions about how we can make this sustainable, but there is hope this could be a moment where the european union gets its refugee and asylum policies right, can

build in some of the opportunities for reform that were missed in the aftermath of the 2015 to 2016 crisis. >> let's put some of that to matthew. this sustainability issue is a major one, isn't it? many of the ukrainians that have arrived may be getting basic shelter and housing and food for now for the next couple of weeks, perhaps, but what about the next two months? what happens beyond that? >> let's be honest -- no government in the region three weeks ago would have anticipated this huge scale of human movement across borders. of course, people were aware of the tensions, but i don't think anyone was ready for this scale. as i said earlier, the governments have really stepped up in each of those countries. they are leading that response. i think as things evolve in the weeks go on, they are looking beyond the immediate government.

they are looking to the eu for funds. they are looking to the united nations and looking to other international ngo's to come in with expertise. specialists in areas like child support, education, and livelihoods, and then, obviously, to try to raise more money, which would be extremely important. we put out an appeal. other parts of the united nations have put out appeals. obviously, the needs financially and in terms of equities are going to be absolutely enormous. >> we mentioned at the top this is the worst refugee crisis europe has seen since the second world for. what implications will this have for overall policy towards migration? is this going to force a fundamental rethink?

>> i think it is really too early to say. i think there is specificity to this crisis. we really see a different response at the polish border compared to what we have seen just a few months ago at the border with belarus with refugees coming from afghanistan and even syria or iraq and what the response was. i think the specificity of this crisis is that this is a war in europe, so in a way, there is no other way for the european government to respond and set up this mechanism. this is also a war that has resulted in aggression from russia. i think for countries like poland, it can bring back some

painful memories and reactivate this need for european unity that we have seen in the past weeks. lastly, there is this perception that these refugees are different. the support we have seen from poland is very different from the drastic response that we had seen at the belarus border just six months before. >> talk a little more about the differences you are seeing in how countries have responded to this. obviously, poland has taken the brunt of this in the short term as far as the number of ukrainians they have taken in, but what about the ones that are not pulling their weight, so to speak? >> we need responsibility sharing across europe. this has been one of the

challenges faced historically by the common european asylum system. in the 2015 and 2016 crisis, greece was a online country. other frontline countries like hungary took a very restrictive view, building a razor line fence, trying to prevent access to their territory. what we needed to do and what the european commission has recognized is that we need to update that system to ensure there's more consistent responsibility sharing, cooperation across the eu 27 member states. this is a moment to put that to the test, to recognize that for this to be sustainable, the responsibility cannot lie exclusively with poland and these countries, that we need to relocate both people and share money, that it will take significant resourcing to support public services, to build jobs and livelihoods. one of the positive

opportunities is we have learnings we can take from the aftermath of 2015-2016. germany in particular, which took the overwhelming majority of syrian refugees arriving in europe, provided investment to vocational training, employment integration that took time to pay off, but over time, we see more and more syrians enter labor markets in germany and integrate socioeconomically, but we can learn from that and have a relocation scheme and financial support and viable opportunities to improve public services, employment opportunities, not only for ukrainian refugees but also local host communities in the areas most affected. we have the best possible chance to have cooperation across europe, but also show that local communities are still as responsive, enthusiastic, and committed to refugee rights in one year, two years, three years, as they are today.

>> alexander brings up a good point about the german model in 2015, 2016. they took so many of the refugees from syria -- i think it was over one million of them -- and managed to integrate them into german society, so this can be done, can't it? >> yeah, and i think it is critical to avoid the perception that european governments are losing control. this could define if all this popular support we are seeing now continues. i think the question now is how we make sure that this right to work is effective, so again, a lot of tools have been deployed

that we are seeing reactivated now, and while we all focus on the operational response, you know, the emergency and make this our instrument that has never been used before work, we need to be thinking about long-term considerations because that is something we did not think about early enough. >> as i mentioned, so many people coming in such a short time, are you getting a sense now at all that the various authorities are getting a handle on this, or do you expect it to continue to get worse? >> it is very difficult to say right now. obviously, that depends on events in ukraine, but in terms of the government response, we think it has been exemplary. of course, there is going to be

an element of chaos when you are dealing with this scale of movement, but if you look at the case of poland, you have already got the office of housing. we are starting to roll out very soon cash assistance for refugees in poland. that will go into other countries. they are talking about vocational and medical training, and i think that is important because it helps the host country as well. there may have and something of a labor loss or a brain drain in poland in particular in the last 5, 10 years, so going back to that example of germany, this could also be an opportunity for poland to reskill and get a lot of that talent that has come over from ukraine. unfortunately, if you look at it from another side, it leaves the country of ukraine in a

difficult position because so much of that talent and workforce and young people will have come across, and the male population, as you know, are engaged in combat. >> what implications is this going to have for asylum policy going forward? >> i think it is too early to say. i think a key factor is going to be how perceived this response is. one thing i wanted to add also is we talked about the deactivation of this mechanism and what we are seeing on the ground is the need to register people very quickly with this mechanism that was never used before, and that has involved setting up specific registration systems for people who are coming, and also relying on a

new mechanism that had been set up. i think in a way, we are seeing a lot of lesson there on how to do better than we have done in the past, and hopefully, this can have implications for eu and migration policy in europe, but i really think we need to understand that this is a specific crisis different than europe has faced in the past. >> what is your view on that? that this is something very specific, and the whole issue of if there needs to be broader policy changes is something perhaps a bit further into the future? >> i think europe has needed to change its policy response for a long time, and this might be the catalyst for that change. there is obviously something unique about this context of

conflict on the borders of europe, but we have seen moments in the past that parallel this, as we have already heard during the 1990's with the conflicts in bosnia and kosovo. we saw massive influx situations into europe, and they were the moments that triggered the situations in european asylum systems. they created the temporary protection directive in 2001, for instance, that is now being invoked, as we heard, for the first time since its creation. i think it is through moments like this that we recognize the need to update, that human displacement will be one of the dividing challenges of the 21st century, that we live in an increasingly insecure world and that we have to have national and regional and global systems that are adapted to that reality. i think we should not necessarily see this as just a one-off. it is possible we will have other major drivers of displacement, including two europe, and we need to ensure we prepare for now, respond to the

immediate crisis but also have systems of responsibility sharing. i think it is also important to recognize that regions can learn from one another. dealing with passive influx situations is something regions in europe have a lot of experience with. in africa, for instance, there have been large-scale responses to movements that involve supporting public services, supporting employment creation. very recently, latin america, the venezuelan situation is one we can learn from. columbia -- colombia has taken in similar numbers of refugees as poland and very quickly provided the right to work and resident status. this is a way to update european refugee response.

>> what are some of the logistical challenges your organization has been encountering? communication down there, if that has been difficult. >> inside ukraine, there are huge logistical challenges. we just started in recent days to move convoys across the border into the western part of the country and then trying to get that out into the more conflict affected areas. the teams we have there have in trying to get out when they can. it is not always safe to do so, and they are trying to start with monitoring, so to locate where internally displaced people are, to set up shelter structures and bring the basic support through to them. on this side of the border, i think the challenge in the first week was the sheer scale of arrivals. people were passing through,

structures were not put up in advance of that, and a number of people were just moving on without being traced or the authorities knowing where they are going, so trying to bring in a little bit of order into that. you mentioned children and child protections. they are trying to bring in more specialists and get specialists that are needed in terms of identity and tracing and so on. that is the focus, really, for now. >> we have to leave it there. thanks very much to all three of you. thanks very much for being on "inside story." thank you, as always, for watching. you can see this program any time, just go to our website, and for more discussion, just go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. goodbye for now.

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