Another 800,000 refugees will flee Ukraine this winter, Unicef warns as £350-a-month payment to Brits opening their homes to Ukrainians faces the axe
- Unicef has warned the coming winter will see huge numbers leave Ukraine again
- Children’s charity has warned as many as 800,000 could flee from Putin’s war
- Meanwhile Downing Street is looking at how to save money in £50bn black hole
- Its Homes for Ukraine scheme is being considered as one way to save funds
Over 800,000 new refugees could flee Ukraine this winter experts have warned – just as Rishi Sunak’s government are said to be considering axing a UK scheme to home them.
Unicef, which provides humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, said desperate families will continue to leave in their thousands to escape Putin’s invasion.
But the warning comes amid a £50 billion black hole found in Britain’s finances that Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt are desperate to fill.
And it is understood the Homes for Ukraine scheme which gave members of the public £350 per month for housing refugees could be axed to save cash.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities-administered project is said to be among many areas where cost-cutting is being considered.
A source told MailOnline: ‘Nothing has been decided yet, a lot of different schemes and budgets across the board are being looked at ahead of the Autumn Statement,’
A children’s charity has warned as many as 800,000 refugees could still flee from Putin’s war
Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt are trying to find ways to fill a £50billion blackhole
Ukrainian servicemen fire artillery from a self-propelled howitzer toward Russian positions near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on Tuesday
Unicef, which has helped at least 250,000 refugees since the war started, has been welcoming families to five Blue Dot sites in Poland.
Manager Dmytro Tretiak said: ‘Ukrainian infrastructure is being damaged. Every day there is no electricity for hours, which can mean no light, water or anything. As the war continues this winter, the threat for people only grows and we know more will come.
‘The signs are the numbers are increasing, there’s always back and forth across the border but we’re seeing way less people going back into Ukraine.’
‘Some of them are devastated, some depressed and some have lost someone close to them,’ he added to the Mirror.
US officials have said that the request by the Biden administration is not to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, but ensure Kyiv maintains the support of its international backers
People familiar with the discussions are wary that Zelensky’s ban on talks with the Russian President has created concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s effects are being felt the most
Alarm as Putin tells Macron 1945 atom bomb is proof ‘you don’t have to launch nuclear strike on a major city to win a war’
Russian leader Vladimir Putin alarmed Western leaders by referencing the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a conversation with French president Emmanuel Macron, diplomatic sources have said.
According to the sources, Putin expressed the view that the bombings – which triggered the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War – demonstrated that ‘you don’t need to attack the major cities in order to win’.
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively.
The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15.
The reported remarks come amid growing concern that the Russian leader could be prepared to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, where Russian forces have suffered increasing setbacks in the conflict.
As many as 100,000 Ukrainians have been given somewhere to live under Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Householders who take refugees in are handed £350 a month from the government as well as food and energy help.
But as Sunak and Hunt attempt to start balancing the books, it and other costly projects have come under the microscope.
Tory MP Bob Seely, who sits on the foreign affairs select committee, told The Sun: ‘It is absolutely right for Rishi and Jeremy to be looking at everything to make sure we get savings rather than put taxes up.
‘But this is a good value for money scheme and they shouldn’t make a false economy.
‘The Homes for Ukraine scheme has brought out the best in people. The number of people who have come forward to support Ukrainians has been incredible.’
It comes after it was reported the US had been privately encouraging Volodymyr Zelensky to drop his ban on talks with Putin and negotiate an end to the fighting with the Russians amid growing fears of nuclear war.
US officials have said that the request by the Biden administration was not to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, but ensure Kyiv maintained the support of its international backers.
People familiar with the discussions are wary Zelensky’s ban on talks with the Russian President has created concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s effects are being felt the most.
Several nations are worried about fuelling a war for many years which has already taken a toll on the world economy and had devastating consequences on the cost and availability of food and fuel.
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