One of the defensive responses to #Germany's policy on #Ukraine has been: "Look at how many refugees we have taken". God bless those who shelter refugees. The problem with this as a policy metric, though, is that it doesn't register success, but very nearly the opposite.
Should say: in conversation with someone from #Britain, this is usually a not-so-subtle counter-attack on our policy in this area, and there is a point. But it doesn't alter the fact: taking refugees from #Ukraine is not a measure of how this is going.
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1524998922321727488
Taking in refugees is something that has to be done when a country has been devastated - or during the process of that happening. Most people who flee would like to go home; many #Syrians certainly would, and the fact so many cannot is a measure of our failure since 2011.
In #Ukraine, all is not lost; we have the chance to secure an outcome where the people currently outside their country for safety reasons can return to their homes. In other words, the question is what a state is doing to expel the Russians, not how many refugees they are hosting
Touchy subject, I know, given how the refugee issue has become snarled up with our own culture and identity wars, but these partisan matters - and the decent sympathy for refugees - should not obscure policy questions over Ukraine if we can help it.
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