Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, greater than 2.5 million folks have fled the nation, making it Europe’s worst refugee disaster since World War II. In looking for shelter in neighboring nations like Romania, some Ukrainian refugees have turned to an surprising place for assist: Tinder.
The New York Times recounts the story of 1 such particular person, Anastasia Tischchenko. She and her good friend Natalia Masechko posted their plight to the courting app after they fled their residence of Ivano-Frankivsk, a metropolis of roughly 230,000 situated in western Ukraine, south of Lviv.
“I’m thinking there are a lot of honest people in the world, and some of them are on Tinder,” Tischchenko instructed The Times. She was proper. Several folks swiped proper on her profile to supply assist, together with one man who put Tischchenko and Masechko in contact with a good friend of a good friend of a good friend who discovered a monastery the 2 might sleep in whereas in Siret, a Romanian metropolis on the southern border of Ukraine. “It was very inspiring,” she mentioned. After their keep in Siret, Tischchenko traveled to Poland, whereas her good friend Masechko stayed in Romania to assist the subsequent wave of refugees.
Like the conflict itself, the refugee disaster has hit a important inflection level in current days. On Friday, officers in Poland’s two largest cities, Warsaw and Krakow, mentioned they have been struggling to accommodate all of the folks arriving within the wake of the battle. Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski warned the “situation is getting more and more difficult every day.” The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that as many as 4 million folks might flee Ukraine because of the conflict.