Crisis in Ukraine spurs rush for fuel and cash among jittery neighbours

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is casting a pall over neighboring countries, with war jitters spurring panic-buying of petrol, cash shortages and collection drives for refugees across the region.

Former Eastern Bloc capitals from Tallinn to Sofia are safe under NATO’s protective umbrella, but Vladimir Putin’s assault — one of the gravest European security threats since World War II — is the first real test for many member states since joining the alliance over the past 23 years.

Polish motorists flocked to petrol stations, with social media awash in images of long lines of cars. The country’s top two oil-industry trade groups appealed for calm, assuring consumers that fuel reserves were covered -- even if most of Poland’s oil imports flow from Russia.

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“We are prepared,” said Daniel Obajtek, the chief executive officer of PKN Orlen SA, Poland’s biggest oil company. He called the rush unfounded. “We’re fully secured and we won’t run out of fuel.”

In Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, scores of people waited in line at Sberbank PJSC, a Russian lender hit by US sanctions. Croatia’s central bank reminded clients that subsidiaries aren’t affected by the restrictions.

Even as Russian tanks close in on Kyiv and Ukraine’s air defenses are battered, very few predict that the war in Ukraine will spill over into other European countries that were once under the shadow of Moscow. NATO’s collective defense, anchored in Article 5 of its charter, means that an attack on an individual member is one gainst the alliance as a whole.

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But that hasn’t prevented anxiety reverberating at the sight of artillery fire and motorised battalions rumbling, in some cases, a day’s drive away.

The Baltic states, part of the Soviet Union for almost half a century, responded by shutting down Russian TV channels accused of spreading propaganda. Grocery stores yanked Russian products from shelves.

In another show of solidarity with Ukraine, the Latvian national opera demanded participants denounce the invasion. The Ukrainian national anthem will be played before each production, it said.

Freedom Fight

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas remarked that the Feb. 24 assault took place on the same day as her nation’s independence day. “We celebrate our freedom today,” Kallas told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. “Ukraine is fighting for their freedom at the same time.”

The outrage also poured out into the streets, with thousands of protesters gathering at Russian embassies. The blue and yellow of Ukraine’s national flag bathed the iconic Palace of Culture and Sciences in Warsaw, Bratislava Castle in the Slovak capital and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

Political allegiances also shifted in a part of the world where Putin could still rely on friends among its leaders.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an occasional Kremlin ally, condemned the invasion and declined to block a fresh set of sanctions. Slovenia’s populist prime minister, Janez Jansa, also switched tack to express staunch support for Ukraine.

But perhaps no European leader made as hard a turn as the Czech President Milos Zeman, an erstwhile vocal Putin advocate. Zeman went as far as pushing for barring Russia from the SWIFT international banking network, a move still not embraced by a number of EU member states.

“A madman must be isolated,” Zeman said in a televised address in Prague on Thursday. “I believe that it is time to resort to far harsher sanctions than previously planned.”

Refugee Influx

The war next door also triggered a change in policy toward migration, as experts warn of more than a million refugees fleeing an extended conflict. Many Eastern European states, particularly Hungary, refused entry to mostly Muslim asylum seekers during the mass influx of 2015 and 2016.

Governments are opening their doors to Ukrainians. Orban, a champion of stridently anti-immigration policies who faces re-election in less than six weeks, signed an executive order exempting Ukrainians from draconian asylum restrictions that the EU’s top court has called illegal.

In the first 48 hours of the invasion, crossings over the frontier were growing. Poland’s border service cited some 56,000 entering from Ukraine since Thursday. The wait at the crossing at Dorohusk, some 360 miles east of Kyiv, can be as long as 24 hours.

The tide is likely to surge. United Nations agencies now see as many as 4 million refugees fleeing Ukraine if the invasion continues.

In Romania, where authorities have dispatched more border police, locals are also offering shelter, food and medicine. Stefan Mandachi, a restaurateur in the northeastern town of Suceava, is offering meals and shelter at one of his hotels, including an event hall.

“Until yesterday, I thought the world’s craziest person was Kim Jong-un, but he’s a baby next to the monster that is Putin,” Mandachi said on his Facebook page. “He can only be stopped by one force, his own people. No one else can do that.”

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