Estonia has backed Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
As per the reports, since May 27, Estonia has accepted more than 40,000 Ukrainian refugees, while the state has also administered temporary protection for each of them.
According to the reports, Estonia has also offered initial accommodation, but arranging permanent housing has been challenging across the country. The Baltic State has also provided security-based needs of up to €900 and state-owned affordable housing.
The Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andress Sutt, has announced that the country would allocate €200,000 for emergency aid for those fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Simultaneously, the funds were utilized to improve the work of humanitarian aid organizations.
On March 1, the Estonian government allocated another €1.3 million to cover the costs of accepting refugees from Ukraine, such as basic health checks and travel expenses within Estonia.
Government officials in Estonia previously announced that a bill was passed to facilitate the entry of Ukrainian refugees into the labour market, where employers were required to pay at least 80 per cent of the average wage of their sector in Estonia for their new refugee employees.
In early March, the University of Tartu launched a scholarship fund for all Ukrainian students, raising donations to support the studies of those students at Estonian universities.
The Ministry of Education has also supported all those Ukrainian children to access the education system by opening temporary schools for displaced children in Tallinn and integrating displaced children anywhere in the country into existing schools.
The kindergartens located in Tallinn have created space to host about 1000 Ukrainian children. Meanwhile, the same has happened in other cities, albeit on a smaller scale.
A charity concert was also held in March at the Estonia Theater in Tallinn, raising more than €140,000 for displaced people from Ukraine, and later in the month, a charity art auction was held.
