The New York Times reports:

Russia’s eight-month war in Ukraine has already created the largest and fastest refugee crisis in decades. But the United Nations and humanitarian agencies are warning that new fighting in the east and south, Moscow’s intensified targeting of power plants and other infrastructure, the approaching winter and fears of a nuclear attack could drive even more Ukrainians to flee their homes in the coming months.

More than 14 million people have fled their homes since Russia’s invasion in February, according to the United Nations, with 7.8 million having sought refuge outside Ukraine. More than six million are displaced inside Ukraine in areas farther from fighting, but are increasingly at risk of Russian airstrikes that have disrupted power and water supplies, producing new misery as temperatures drop.

Beneath the raw numbers lies a series of agonizing choices made by individuals and families over schools, work and care for family members who are too old or infirm to leave their homes.

Although the immediate danger of a Russian takeover of the capital, Kyiv, and the country’s second city, Kharkiv, has passed, and many people have returned to their homes there, the numbers of the displaced continue to climb, if more slowly. Some 10.5 million people had been displaced by the war just in its first month, according to U.N. figures. But Russia’s barrages of missile and drone strikes across the country in recent weeks has highlighted that nowhere in Ukraine is truly safe. [Continue reading…]