Daniiel is just two months old. Tucked up in layers of blankets to shield him from the bitter cold, he is balanced in the arms of his mother, Diana, between various belongings. He whimpers and Diana pulls him close, kissing his face, trying to comfort him the only way she can. Diana’s other two children, Julia, five, and Anna, eight, walk alongside her. They are some of the luckier ones. Diana was allowed to leave Ukraine with her husband, and he has joined the family as they cross the border into Romania following an hours-long journey to escape their besieged homeland.
In the first week after Russian president Vladimir Putin commenced his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the number of people fleeing their homes in the country hit 1 million, according to a tracker from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). By the second week the figure had doubled.
