Around 1.95 million people have crossed into Poland from Ukraine since Russia launched its attack on the country, the Polish Border Guard tweeted on Thursday.

This includes 60,000 arrivals who were processed on Wednesday, a decline of 11 per cent compared to the previous day.

There are no official figures at present on how many refugees have stayed in Poland and how many have travelled on to other EU member states.

Meanwhile, Germany has registered 187,428 arrivals from Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, the Interior Ministry said most of them were women and children.

The actual number is likely to be far higher, however, since Germany is only registering those detected by the police in places such as the Germany-Austria border, in stations or on trains.

Germany has no regular border controls along its frontiers with EU states such as Poland and Ukrainians are allowed to enter without a visa.

It is also unclear how many people have travelled onwards to reach family or friends in other countries.

Ukraine, which is Europe’s largest country by size, had more than 44 million citizens before Russia launched its full-scale attack on February 24.

More than three million people have fled Ukraine, according to United Nations figures.

Most are initially staying in neighbouring countries such as Poland, which shares a border of more than 500 kilometres with Ukraine.

-dpa/NAN