"Russia providing help for all Ukrainian refugees is a fact, and we would like to thank both local and federal authorities for that," official representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Russian office Baisa Vak-Voya said. He added that Russia is doing an excellent job providing the refugees with everything they need.
"If you did not help them [refugees], we would have to," Vak-Voya said, explaining that if Russia had not stepped in, some of the funds that are currently being spent on Syrian and Afghan refugees would have had to be redirected to Ukraine.
The help provided to Ukrainian refugees by Russia has been "flawless", according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Chief of Moscow Mission Zlatko Zigic.
This is not the first time Russia has been thanked for the support it has given to Ukrainian refugees. Baisa Vak-Voya also visited the Rostov region in September. He expressed his appreciation to local authorities, NGOs and volunteers who were working to help those crossing the border from Ukraine into Russia to flee the violence in the East of the country.
A massive flow of refugees has been arriving to Rostov Region since the beginning of hostilities in Eastern Ukraine in mid-April. According to the latest data provided by the local authorities, over 400,000 Ukrainians have fled to Russia through the Rostov Region, while at the moment the region is hosting over 39,000 refugees, including more than a thousand people living in four temporary accommodation centers. The overall number of Ukrainian refugees in Russia exceeds 830,000.
