An ongoing refugee crisis began in Europe in late February 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Over 6 million refugees fleeing Ukraine are recorded across Europe, while an estimated 8 million others had been displaced within the country by late May 2022. Approximately one-quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March. 90% of Ukrainian refugees are women and children, while most Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country. By 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country. The invasion caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II and its aftermath, is the first of its kind in Europe since the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, as well as the fourth largest refugee crisis in history, and is the largest refugee crisis of the 21st century, with the highest refugee flight rate globally.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014. The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II. It is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of military casualties. By June 2022, Russian troops occupied about 20% of Ukrainian territory. From a population of 41 million in January 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million had fled the country by April 2023, creating Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage caused by the war, widely described as an ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.