Icelandic Police Officers May Be Sent to Ukrainian Border

The Icelandic national police commissioner is preparing the possible participation of Icelandic police officers in border control-related tasks at the Ukrainian border of Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldavia, mbl.is reports. This is being done in consultation with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, a.k.a. Frontex, headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. In recent weeks, Frontex has sent 257 of its standing corps officers to assist at the border with Ukraine.

According to a new situation report from the national police commissioner’s border division, written due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rising number of refugees from Ukraine, Frontex plans to send up to 3,000 border control officers and other specialists to assist at the border where they are needed, and the national police commissioner is preparing Iceland’s participation in that project.

The situation report further reveals that according to information from the Icelandic Directorate of Immigration, all housing resources provided by municipalities to the Directorate through contracts have been fully used.  Seventy-five percent of short-term accommodation available to the Directorate is in use. A total of 649 people are receiving service from the Directorate, 107 of them with ties to Ukraine. The total number of people receiving service from municipalities and the Directorate combined is 1,011.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, 237 individuals with ties to Ukraine have applied for international protection in Iceland. The group is comprised of 126 women, 66 children and 45 men.

The number of people with ties to Ukraine who have applied for international protection in Iceland for the past seven days is 134, or 19 a day on average.