World Food Program says its readying to feed 3 million people inside Ukraine

ROME — The head of the World Food Program says the UN organization is putting in motion systems to feed 3 million to 5 million people inside Ukraine.

David Beasley tells The Associated Press from Warsaw, Poland that they were putting together teams around Ukraine’s borders to reach “those who can’t get out, and those who are going to be needing food support immediately.” He says they were leasing warehouses, trying to figure out how much food they can potentially buy in Ukraine, and how much can be brought from outside.

“No one would ever expect anything like this in Europe in this century,” Beasley says, adding that millions of Ukraine’s 43 million-strong population were either refugees or internally displaced.

He praises the response of Poles, who have been meeting fleeing Ukrainians at the border, “making certain they’re getting hot meals, taking them to wherever they need to go,” calling it “really, really quite remarkable.”