100 days of the Ukraine war: refugees, sanctions, and aid

The full-scale Russian war in Ukraine has now gone on for 100 days. In a little more than three months, the brutal war has taken over from the pandemic as the primary worry across the continent. 

In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, Barcelona erupted in protests, with thousands of people – from Ukrainians living here, others from neighbouring eastern countries, as well as locals – taking to the streets and squares to denounce the Russian aggression. 

Just over a week after the invasion began, we published our first podcast on the topic, looking at what has happened in Catalonia as a response to the war, from massive protests to the humanitarian aid effort.

Refugees

Millions of refugees have left Ukraine, with 20,000 arriving in Catalonia by mid-April. Authorities set up a welcome site in the Fira Barcelona congress hall in order to process the necessary paperwork for new arrivals in a more efficient manner. 

The Catalan and Spanish governments committed to accommodating as many refugees as necessary, and many slept in housing set up by the authorities, but the majority have stayed with friends or family members that were already living here. 

The town of Guissona, in western Catalonia, has until this year been a small, nondescript town that not many people knew much about. However, even before the war, it had a significant Ukrainian population which has only since grown with the arrivals of friends and family of residents of the town fleeing the situation in their home country. Around 15% of the town's residents are Ukrainian nationals.

Economic consequences

The consequences of the war have been felt across the continent, with inflation soaring to record highs, driven by skyrocketing fuel prices, causing a cost of living crisis for many. 

Energy is central to the economic consequences of the war, and a topic causing huge debate across the continent. Since the outbreak of the war, the EU has banned imports of coal and other fossil fuels, halted exports to Russia of reactor fuel, and recently pushed for an embargo on Russian oil coming through pipelines. 

However, Europe has not yet acted on gas, as the continent relies significantly on imports from Russia. According to Tinatin Akhvlediani, a foreign affairs expert for the Centre for European Policy Studies, the next logical step for the EU would be to act on the central pillar of the Russian economy, but it is complicated.

The war has made the EU's need for a green and less dependent source of energy much clearer. Brussels has presented a new plan dubbed ‘RepowerEU’, which envisages a total investment of around €300 billion to cut energy ties with Russia. According to the Commission's calculations, the full implementation of this strategy would save European taxpayers €100 million a year. Of course, this plan would take years to establish. 

Sanctions

Rafael Loss, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the EU has played a key role in pushing for sanctions against Russia. However, he believes that "it is not very clear what the strategy behind the EU's sanctions package" is. 

"There are diplomats who have doubts about the success of these packages," he said, noting that with the restrictions the Russian economy is "under a lot of pressure."

According to him, more "targeted" sanctions would be needed for the true effects to be felt, and he also sees it as a "logical" step for the EU to now move towards sanctions on Russian gas. “The profit margin of coal was small compared to that of oil and it is even greater with gas,” he stresses.

For the past three months, the EU has banned transactions with the Central Bank of Russia, banned Russia from the Swift payment system, and restricted all transactions with certain state-owned enterprises.

However, some experts believe that these actions are still insufficient. "Russia still has hundreds of banks operating, and the country's largest entity was sanctioned almost two days ago," Akhvlediani said.

On the foreign trade side, however, the CEPS think-tank expert believes that EU action has been effective. In this field, EU sanctions mostly include restrictions on exports of technology and electronics, which would allow Russia to "strengthen itself militarily."

Aid

The European Union and many member states have dedicated huge resources to resolving the situation, by sending resources such as weapons and food to the Eastern European country. 

The EU has also recently agreed on a new aid package in the form of loans worth €9 billion for Ukraine, however, this is only enough to keep the country running for around two months. 

In addition to financial aid, the EU has supported a reconstruction fund in the country, but the details of this have yet to be clarified. European Commission executive vice president Valdis Domvrovskis has said that the amount of money needed would be "hundreds of billions of euros." 

Experts point out that one of the strongest possibilities for obtaining these resources is to confiscate the frozen assets of the Russian central bank and of various oligarchs. However, "there is no legal basis" to act in this regard, Tinatin Akhvlediani, says.

Additionally, many local entities, such as the Fundació del Convent de Santa Clara led by famed nun Sor Lucía Caram, have collected funds to send two ambulances with humanitarian aid to Ukraine.