Yevgen Chornomordenko took off with a sprint when the Ukrainian father of two saw the GPS coordinates from his wife’s cellphone draw nearer to the border crossing into Poland. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi visited the same Medyka border crossing. He proclaimed the number of refugees leaving Ukraine the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. About 1.5 million people had sought safety in neighboring countries in just 11 days. Chornomordenko’s wife and two children made the crossing themselves in a small white Kia she had driven across Ukraine from Kyiv just moments after the U.N. official spoke.
