I take everything from RT on the Ukraine with a large grain of salt. In fact, I take all reporting on the topic as potentially just bullshit at the moment. Nonetheless, in the past 24 hours, they were way ahead of the curve on reporting the defection of units of the Ukrainian military. And now, they are reporting that a refugee crisis is brewing.
An estimated 675,000 Ukrainians left for Russia in January and February, fearing the “revolutionary chaos” brewing in Ukraine, Russia's Federal Border Guard Service said. Officials fear a growing humanitarian crisis......
Ukrainians have long formed a large presence in Russia. According to the official 2010 census, 1.9 million Ukrainians were officially living in Russia, although the head of the Federal Migration Service put that figure as high as 3.5 million one year before. While those migrants were often prompted by economic concerns, political turmoil has spiked the recent rise in Ukrainian’s attempting to leave the country.
On Saturday, Russian migration authorities reported that 143,000 requests for asylum had been sent to Russia within a two-week period. Russian officials have promised to expedite the processing of those requests./blockquote>
If accurate, that 675,000 figure is on the same level as the UNHCR reports from Sudan and Congo, while being over twice the number reported from the rest of Europe as a whole.