Who are the people fleeing Ukraine and arriving in Poland?

The UN says more than 500,000 refugees have left Ukraine for neighbouring countries

About 280,000 people have crossed the Ukraine-Poland border, Polish deputy interior minister Pawel Szefernaker said on February 28. EPA

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The UN has said more than 500,000 refugees have fled Ukraine for neighbouring countries after Russia's incursion, with the Polish government saying 280,000 people had arrived there.

They have endured days-long journeys into Poland in often freezing temperatures, with most entering the EU with little more than backpacks, if that.

The migrants are almost entirely Ukrainian women and children, and those who were in Ukraine but are not from the country.

Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 have been blocked from the leaving the country as the government launches a conscription drive to bolster its forces against Russia.

While each migrant is fleeing the conflict, all have their own stories.

Mohamed Cherdoud

Mr Cherdoud, 31, a chef from Algeria, studied in Ukraine but eventually married a Ukrainian woman and lived in Kharkiv, a city less than 50 kilometres from Russia.

He said that over the weekend, an Algerian friend, Abdul Moneim, was killed in Kharkiv after he was hit by a Russian sniper.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, has been devastated by attacks after Russia's incursion on February 24.

Mr Cherdoud, who works at a Japanese and Italian restaurant, left two days later and initially planned to build up supplies and hunker down in Kharkiv.

“I wanted to stay there but it was getting worse and worse,” he said at the train station in Przemysl, Poland, less than 10km from the Ukrainian border.

His plan to flee Kharkiv by car ran into problems when his vehicle was damaged by a Russian strike.

“I decided to leave, but the car was hit by an attack so we went to the train station," Mr Cherdoud said. "My home is near an army training school. The Russians were shooting at it and my car got hit.”

Recalling the initial day of the Russian assault, he said: “I was very scared. They were shooting and there was a lot of noise in the sky. Everybody was looking at the sky and checking where the bombs were falling.”

Mr Cherdoud will now go to Warsaw. His wife was on holiday in Egypt when the attack happened. But he wants to return to Kharkiv as soon as he can.

“I have there my friends, my work. I want to live there, I love Kharkiv and in the future, if the war ends, I will go back there.”

He left Kharkiv by train and ended up in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine not far from the Polish border.

“Everybody has a different story,” Mr Cherdoud said.

He and a group of friends took a taxi from Lviv, aiming for the Polish border, but then hit the long queues that have built up as hundreds of thousands try to leave Ukraine.

Mr Cherdoud then walked 20km after the driver said he would go no further, boarding a train at the final station in Ukraine.

“We got on a train for 14 hours," he said. "It was overcrowded. There were little children, everybody was standing.

"Around midnight the train left the station and in eight minutes, it arrived in Przemysl."

People desperate to leave Ukraine try to board a train at the railway station in Lviv. All photos: Oliver Marsden for The National

Ukrainian men returning from Poland to fight for their country help pass over donations of clothes at the border crossing from Poland into Ukraine.

A train driver tells people on the platform that he cannot pick anyone up at the station in Lviv.

An elderly woman sits alone waiting to cross the border from Ukraine into Poland as fighting continues.

Days-long waits to cross borders have been reported.

Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 have been stopped from leaving Ukraine amid a conscription drive to defend against Russia.

A couple carry their child out of the ticket hall at Lviv railway station.

A family attempts to walk the last 25 kilometres of the journey to the Polish border.

A mother tries to keep her daughter warm on the platform of Lviv railway station.

Elise from Kiev sits waiting for a train to take her out of Ukraine after hearing that Poland has closed its borders.

Oksana Potelchak

A translator from Kiev, Ms Potelchak left the capital with her two children and sister last Monday, three days before Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced the "military operation" in Ukraine.

“My husband, he is military. He is in Kiev now," she said. "Every day they have very difficult situations, attacks — but they stand and they are sure that we will win.”

Ms Potelchak said her husband told her Ukrainian forces would not just beat back the Russian offensive on Kiev, but would win across the country.

She did not expect Russia to attack the capital. “We thought maybe the south, the east, but not Kiev. We didn’t expect that.

“We were just lucky" to leave Kiev before the invasion, Ms Potelchak said.

“My sons go to school and everything that we’ve heard from classmates, from their parents — it was horrible.”

While initially some had been able to stay in Kiev, “now many people are still there but they have no chance to leave the city because of the danger".

Ms Potelchak said she has been able to speak to her husband every day.

“My husband told me that I won’t recognise Kiev," she said. "I can’t imagine what’s there.

"I think that our army is very strong and they will do everything so that we get all our cities and our countries back.”

Ms Potelchak describes her overriding emotions as “horrible.”

“Because when we left Kiev, my grandmother stayed there," she said. "She didn’t want to leave.

"But the parents of my husband have taken her to their town near the Kiev region. It is very difficult to describe the emotions. I think it’s even impossible. I wish that no one in the world has such an experience.”

Now she will go to Germany, to support other arriving Ukrainians.

“I’m an interpreter and I speak German," Ms Potelchak said. "I think it will be easier for the first time when people come [from Ukraine].

"The volunteers in Germany, they try to develop different initiatives for people who come from Ukraine.

“My sister is also in Germany. We are trying to help Ukrainians who expect to spent maybe one, two, three months in this not very pleasant situation. But we have to do it for our children.”

A monitor displays a projectile striking the regional state administration building in Kharkiv, as the Russian invasion continues. Reuters

People help a wounded woman in the aftermath of Russian shelling in Kharkiv. EPA

Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry the body of a victim following shelling in Kharkiv. AP

Students who fled the conflict rest in a refugee camp in Voluntari, Romania. AP

Members of an Ukrainian civil defence unit pass new assault rifles to the opposite side of a blown-up bridge on Kiev’s northern front. AFP

Civilians cross a river on Kiev's northern front. AFP

A woman takes photos of a destroyed accommodation building near a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP

The city hall of Kharkiv, damaged by Russian shelling. AFP

Debris litters the square outside the damaged Kharkiv city hall. AFP

A Ukrainian woman sleeps on the floor of the railway station in Zahonyi close to the Hungary/Ukraine border. AFP

A medical worker attends to wounded man at a hospital in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP

Refugees from Ukraine in a tent at the Medyka border crossing, Poland. AP

Debris outside the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile, in Kharkiv. Reuters

A student evacuated from Ukraine is embraced by her family after arriving at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. AFP

Rescuers in a building damaged by a missile in central Kharkiv. Reuters

An ambulance is visible through the damaged window of a vehicle hit by bullets in Kiev, Ukraine. Reuters

Territorial defence members prepare to head out on patrol in Kiev. EPA

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech on screen during the opening of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. AP

A policeman detains a young demonstrator during a protest against Russia's attack on Ukraine in St Petersburg, Russia. AP

Local residents in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, prepare Molotov cocktails. Reuters

Residents clean a bomb shelter under an out-of-service cinema in central Zhytomyr. Reuters

Ukrainian volunteers tear cloth into strips to make camouflage nets in Lviv, western Ukraine. AP

Part of the military convoy north-west of Invankiv, Ukraine. AP

Mark Goncharuk, a young boy from Kiev, leaves his father behind as he travels with the rest of his family towards the border. Reuters

People hold an anti-war protest outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. Reuters

A crater caused by shelling on the outskirts of Kiev. AFP

People queue outside a grocery store in the Ukrainian capital. EPA

Ukrainian soldiers stand at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kiev. EPA

Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, second left, and Davyd Arakhamia, faction leader of the Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian Parliament, third right, attend the peace talks in the Gomel region of Belarus. AP

People who have fled the Russian invasion in Ukraine, clamour to board a bus bound for a refugee centre established in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

Hanna Pavlovna Lukasz, from Mirhord, Ukraine, said her sons, aged 12 and 8, and her 66-year-old mother had been waiting on the Ukrainian side of the border crossing with Medyka, Poland, for four days. AP

A volunteer from Kiev prepares a rear post with trenches in the city. AFP

A child being treated for cancer rests in the bomb shelter of the oncology ward at a hospital in Kiev. Getty

Police officers check occupants of a suspicious car in Kiev, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters

A woman from Ukraine uses a phone to listen to a speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a refugee shelter in Beregsurany, Hungary. Reuters

Shelves empty of bread after a curfew was lifted as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kiev. Reuters

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, left, and President Zelenskyy. AFP

Snow-covered shoes donated for those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Reuters

People who have fled Ukraine wait for a bus to transport them away from the border crossing in Medyka. Reuters

Norwegian soldiers of the Nato-enhanced forward presence battalion pose at a military plane as they arrive at an airport in Kaunas, Lithuania. AP

A person fleeing Ukraine sits during snowfall at a temporary camp in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

Footage reportedly of Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road before a drone strike near Malyn, Ukraine. Reuters

An explosion after what are said to be Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road are struck by a drone. Reuters

The monument to Russian troops from the Second World War, after the figures’ hands were painted red, at the Red Army memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria. EPA

The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, is lit up with the colours of Ukraine’s national flag in a show of support. AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of the National Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, in Moscow. EPA

A man looks out from a train, at the railway station in Lviv, Ukraine. The UN has estimated the conflict could produce as many as four million refugees. AP

A Ukrainian boy waits for his mother after passing the border crossing point in Siret, northern Romania. EPA

Russian policemen detain a demonstrator in St Petersburg, during a protest against the country's military actions in Ukraine. EPA

Ukrainian soldiers at a check point in the city of Zhytomyr. Reuters

Residents prepare petrol bombs to defend the city, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Reuters

A pro-Russian fighter sits inside a tank in the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, second left, and Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Defence Minister Valery Gerasimov, left, during their meeting in Moscow. AP

Ukrainians and supporters gather during a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens against the Russian military's operation in Ukraine. AFP

Ukrainian Territorial Defence fighters test an automatic grenade launcher taken from a destroyed Russian infantry mobility vehicla after a battle in Kharkiv. AFP

Tatiana and Fatih Yarkup

Tatiana and her partner Fatih Yarkup, 26, lived in Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea.

After the Russian assault, they woke to the reports of the conflict. They left last Friday.

“The bombs were falling and we thought the shooting and the war would come to Odessa soon, so we decided to leave before it does,” Tatiana said.

“The days were OK but the nights were terrible. Odessa is a port city and they were shooting from the sea.

"There was nowhere to go, it was scary to stay at home. There was nowhere to hide, not like in Kiev because Odessa doesn’t have subway system.”

They managed to drive most of the way, about 7km from the border, but the car broke down.

“We were waiting in line and had to start the car and stop the engine over and over again, so the battery stopped working and we had to walk,” Mr Yarkup said.

The couple said it had been hard to get fuel because of attacks on petrol stations.

“We slept in our car," Mr Yarkup said. "It was very scary because we were sleeping in the fields and the roads were being bombed and also the petrol stations.

"We managed to almost get to the border crossing but we stopped 7km from the crossing.”

Mr Yarkup is in the third year of his medicine degree.

“On Wednesday I was studying at the university and on Thursday the war started,” he said.

They have been told they can get a train ticket to anywhere in Poland, but only have a limited network to rely on.

“We just arrived here. We don’t know what we are doing or what we should do,” Tatiana said.

Helena, right, and her brother Bodia, from Lviv, wait at the Medyka border crossing in eastern Poland. AFP

A brother and sister share a bowl of soup after they and their mother fled the Russian invasion of Ukraine and crossed the border at Medyka, Poland. Reuters

Nadia, a Ukrainian woman, walks around with her baby in a car park in Przemysl, Poland as she waits for help with transport and accommodation. Reuters

A woman searches through donated clothes for useful items after she and her children fled the Russian invasion in Ukraine and crossed the border in Medyka, Poland. Reuters

Oksana, 30, holds a seven-day-old child after arriving by bus at a rendezvous point organised to help Ukrainian refugees with accommodation and transport to different cities in Poland. Reuters

Refugees wait for help in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

People wait in a Polish car park to help refugees arriving from Ukraine. Reuters

A father kisses his daughter after she, her mother and grandmother fled from the Russian invasion in Ukraine and crossed the border in Medyka, Poland. Reuters

Refugees wait for help in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters

Ukrainian refugees in the town of Maroz near Olsztyn, Poland. EPA

A Ukrainian refugee in the town of Maroz, Poland. EPA

Ukrainian refugees in the town of Maroz, northern Poland. EPA

Hospital employees and volunteers make hundreds of beds to prepare for an influx of Ukrainian refugees in Rzeszow, Poland. AP

Ukrainian refugees who arrived by evening train from Kiev to Warsaw are helped at the Warszawa Wschodnia railway station in the Polish capital. EPA

Ukrainian refugees arrive by train from Kiev at the Warszawa Wschodnia station in Warsaw. EPA

Ukrainian refugees arrive by train from Kiev to Warsaw, Poland. EPA

Ukrainian refugees arrive from the Medyka border crossing in eastern Poland. AFP

A man hugs a child at the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Getty

Lyudmila

Lyudmila, her sister, son and mother left Kiev four days ago by car. Her husband, who stayed in Ukraine to fight, drove them as far as he could but the traffic jams saw them at a virtual standstill.

“We’d go five metres and then have to wait half an hour,” Lyudmila said.

They relied on lifts for the rest in way, because her 70-year-old mother could not walk far.

Now the family are going to Warsaw, but Lyudmila's thoughts are never far from home.

“We pray that the fighting will soon stop, because the people are dying,” she said.