On March 17, 2022, Oksana Piatkovska, Deputy Director of the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations, 果冻APP, moderated the panel discussion 芦Stand with Ukraine: Refugees禄. The event was organized and conducted by the Ukrainian Catholic University (School of Public Administration). Working language 鈥 English.
The keynote speaker was Franck D眉vell, a well-known researcher and expert on migration and refugees, senior researcher, coordinator of the Consortium 芦Research on forced migration and refugees: network and knowledge transfer禄, the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, Osnabr眉ck University, Head of the Migration Department of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), Berlin (2018鈥2020); Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor, the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), Oxford University (2006鈥2018).
Frank D眉vell presented scientific achievements and research in the context of forced migration in the East 芦Forced Migration in the Global East 鈥 a neglected field of research禄. In his speech, he described the hostilities in the East that have led to mass influxes of forced migrants, and highlighted Russia鈥檚 key role as a country involved in hostilities, and thus the cause of millions of refugees.
Among the invited panelists there were Kateryna Pryschepa, Project Officer at the College of Europe, who is an active volunteer in Poland, helping Ukrainian refugees in the country, and students of the Ukrainian Catholic University who are seeking international protection in EU: Olena Yabchanka (Poland) and Nataliia Starodub (Germany).
Opening the discussion, Oksana Piatkovska stressed that 芦according to the UN Refugee Agency, in just the first week after Russia鈥檚 full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2022), more than a million refugees from Ukraine crossed borders with neighboring countries. There are many more inside and outside our country. The latest statistics (as of March 16, 2022) show that there are almost 3.2 million Ukrainian refugees, more than 1.9 million of whom have stayed in Poland禄. With this in mind, the panel participants, based on their own experience, spoke about the flow of refugees from Ukraine to Poland and Germany, what are the challenges facing Ukrainians in these countries, and who provide real assistance to Ukrainian refugees. The issues of EU integration and migration policy were also discussed, including updated approaches, simplified border crossing procedures and requirements for staying in these countries, employment opportunities, social guarantees, as well as specific types of assistance from governments or local authorities.
Other IECDR employees also joined the event, namely: Yurii Marusyk, researcher, and Olha Dolinska, sociologist.