The following messages reflect priority protection issues and gaps in Ukraine, based on monitoring and analysis conducted by the Ukraine Protection Cluster and its regular Protection Snapshots. Additional contributions were made by the Global Protection Cluster’s Advocacy and Human Rights Engagement Task Teams. This document will be adapted while reflecting rapidly developing protection risks.

Just over 2 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia began its attack 12 days ago, NPR reports Tuesday per a United Nations tracker. Of the 2 million refugees, at least half are children, reports UNICEF. The 2 million total represents about 4 to 4.5 percent of Ukraine's population, notes NPR and Politico.

KYIV, 8 March 2022 – An estimated 800,000 children had fled Ukraine in recent weeks, as the total number of refugees fleeing Ukraine reached 2 million people today. A growing number of these children are arriving on their own, without family support, in an escalating child protection crisis.

Hundreds of Ukraine’s Roma people face an uncertain future in Moldova’s capital Chisinau as many are not documented.

The exodus from the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and from across Ukraine has been underway since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, 2022, with more than a million refugees pouring into neighboring countries. The pace of evacuations from Zaporizhzhia has escalated since Thursday evening, when the nearby nuclear power station in Enerhodar was captured by Russian soldiers, who set fire to a training building adjacent to the plant. Some residents fear the Russians will attack the city itself next, or try to impose power blackouts.

Joint statement by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

Nikolai Kuleba is the ombudsman for children with the office of the president of Ukraine. This is an extract from his opinion piece in The Guardian: "Daily, parents call me pleading for assistance to evacuate their children, willing to take any risk to find safety. I cannot help them all now. I cannot tell them they are wrong to ask."

UNICEF estimates that 7.5 million children in Ukraine are in danger from the conflict and require urgent assistance. Shelling has hit hospitals, restricted the work of emergency services and is creating a major wave of trauma among the young. Half a million children have fled out of Ukraine with their families.

New York, NY, March 7, 2022 — The International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns that of the over 1.5 million refugees that have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion, the vast majority are women and children at grave risk of violence, exploitation and abuse.

Children who are too sick to go home or flee the capital shelter from Russian missiles in a Kyiv hospital.