Poland to close asylums for most Ukrainian refugees

The Polish government has approved a draft law envisaging the gradual termination of collective accommodation centres for Ukrainian refugees. This is reported by Polish Radio.

From 1 November, such shelters will be available only to representatives of vulnerable categories: the elderly, pregnant women and people with disabilities. Currently, all Ukrainians are entitled to free accommodation in these centres for the first three months after arrival in the country.

After 120 days, a period of financial participation begins - refugees are obliged to partially cover the costs of accommodation and food. According to Joanna Bachanek, spokeswoman for the Mazowieckie voivode, more than half of the current residents of such centres already live there on a paid basis. In the Mazowieckie province alone, about 3,000 people remain in shelters, with more than 1,000 places still available.

A representative of the Polish government, Adam Szlapka, said that the country was adapting the forms of assistance to Ukrainians depending on the current circumstances. According to him, the moment has come when accommodation centres are no longer needed in the same volume.

The EU-backed Together Towards Independence programme will be launched for 6,000 Ukrainians who are not in vulnerable categories. It provides subsidies for renting accommodation and paying for Polish language courses.

Earlier Socialportal wrote about the story of Ukrainian human rights defender Maksym Butkevych, who spent more than two years in Russian captivity. Maksym was sentenced to 13 years in the Russian Federation on a trumped-up case that claimed he was an extremist who ran a group of far-right radicals. These charges shocked everyone who knew Maksim. He was a human rights activist for decades, co-founder of the organisation Without Borders, and one of the few people in Ukraine who cared about the fate of asylum seekers, refugees, and foreign students who faced arbitrariness, rudeness, and intolerance. He also helped political refugees stemming from authoritarian regimes, primarily Putin's.