Contextual photos of destruction, Chernihiv, Ukraine

War in Ukraine

A damaged road and destroyed buildings, the result of intense fighting in Chernihiv. Ukraine, May 2022.

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In late February 2022, Russian forces attacked multiple cities across Ukraine, leading to full-scale war.

The intense fighting has led to 6.6 million people leaving Ukraine and becoming refugees in Europe.* Within Ukraine, over 4.4 million people remain displaced by the war.**

As war continues across Ukraine and people flee, our teams are responding to a severe humanitarian crisis, both in Ukraine and in neighbouring countries.

We currently have approximately 20 international and 350 Ukrainian staff working in response to the war in Ukraine. They work as medical staff (surgeons, doctors, nurses); psychologists; logisticians and administrators.

*UNHCR, July 2024.
**Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, July 2024.

Patient Pavlo, 25 years old, with leg injuries, tried to stand up, but the hospital doctors wouldn’t allow him to. The MSF team transports the patient on a stretcher to the vehicle. "I feel like ‘three plus’, constant aching pain in my legs, but fortunately there is no sharp pain. I think I'll be running in a month," Pavlo talks about his condition at the time of transportation from the hospital in Kostiantynivka to Dnipro.

Patient Pavlo, 25 years old, with leg injuries, tried to stand up, but the hospital doctors wouldn’t allow him to. The MSF team transports him on a stretcher to the ambulance. Ukraine, August 2024.

Our teams evacuate patients from hospitals close to the frontlines, including trauma patients, and refer them to hospitals in safer areas through a fleet of 17 ambulances operating across eastern Ukraine. Some of the ambulances are equipped for intensive care support. Run by a team of paramedics, doctors, and drivers, the ambulances have referred over 18,500 patients since 2023.

MSF surgeon Dr. Khassan El-Kafarna and Dr. Andres Carot operate to remove shrapnel from a 34-year-old woman's neck, who was injured in a shelling in Toretsk in Ukraine.

Most of the patient admissions to the Kostiantynivka hospital are related to violent trauma from shelling, bomb and shrapnel blasts.

The number of severe cases is very high. Every fifth patient coming into the hospital are deemed to be a “red case”, meaning that there is an immediate life threat to the patient and that the treatment window should be within 30-60 minutes of first medical contact.

MSF staff aim to alleviate the burden on the healthcare system - and specifically on the trauma centers - by triaging and stabilising patients. The staff assess the needs of patients, determine the urgency, stabilise them, refer to in-hospital department, to emergency damage-control surgery or to other Ministry of Health hospitals.

From August 2022 to August 2023, more than 1,800 patients have been admitted to the emergency department and MSF has provided 231 surgical interventions in Kostiantynivka hospital.

MSF doctors in the emergency department at Kostiantynivka hospital operate to remove shrapnel from a patient. Ukraine, June 2023.

In Kherson city, an MSF medical team supports surgical and trauma activities. Medical teams run triage and operating theatre activities and perform surgeries. Our staff also provide treatment during mass casualty events and perform surgeries, in the emergency room at Pokrovsk hospital. A medical team also supports Kostiantynivka hospital in Donetsk and the Izium hospital in Kharkiv based on need.

View of a training to manage mass influx of wounded given by MSF Staff Edward Chu, Advisor for Emergency Medicine, and Joachim Gruber, medical doctor in a hospital in Lviv.

MSF staff conduct a training on managing mass casualties. Ukraine, 14 March 2022.

We send donations of medical supplies and hygiene kits to medical facilities, and provide training support for emergency responses, managing a high influx of war wounded, decontamination, trauma, gender-based violence and mental health. Donations from MSF have also been used to restore hospitals damaged by shelling in Donetsk, Kherson, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam has had a significant impact on the healthcare system in southern Ukraine, which is also affected by the fighting. Destroyed hospitals, a lack of medical staff, and daily shelling are the conditions under which healthcare workers in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions work.

During the Russian military occupation of the village of Virivka in the Kherson region, the only medical facility was destroyed and looted. Ministry of Health nurse Olha Varenyk was conducting medical check-ups in her home, but recently a modular house was installed in her yard, allowing her to see patients there. She is the only health worker that stays in the village permanently. MSF mobile clinic regularly visits the village and works with Olha in this house.

Ministry of Health nurse Olha Varenyk was conducting medical check-ups in her home, but recently a modular house was installed in her yard, allowing her to see patients there. She is the only health worker that stays in her village permanently. The MSF mobile clinic team regularly visits the village and works with Olha in this house. Kherson, Ukraine, May 2024.

MSF mobile clinics provide basic healthcare services, psychological counselling and social services, sexual and reproductive health services, mental healthcare and health promotion. Through these mobile clinics, we also provide medicines for people with chronic illnesses such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes, heart disease and epilepsy. Severely unwell patients are referred to hospitals. Through our mobile clinics in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, we are now screening for tuberculosis.

Traditional Ukrainian crafts made during a MSF health promotion activity at the Kherson hub, Vinnytsia.

There are different people each week, depending on the arts and crafts proposed. Today it is pottery of traditional Ukrainian craft for Easter. During the session, the health promotion team actually sits down and talks to each person individually at one point or another, so they can use general questions to find out how people are feeling. They also build up a relationship of trust. As the health promoters have already described the symptoms in the introduction, the participant can relate and ask for more information. At the end of the session, everyone practices a breathing exercise, a new tool to help them cope with stress.

Traditional Ukrainian crafts made during a MSF health promotion activity at the Kherson hub, Vinnytsia. Ukraine, April 2024.

Our teams provide mental health support through mobile clinics in areas where it’s hard for patients to access healthcare, particularly in rural areas and shelters for people displaced by the war. In 2023, a dedicated centre for people experiencing war-related post-traumatic stress disorder was opened in Vinnytsia. There, we offer psychological sessions for patients and people in their support network. Our specialists provide them with techniques to help reduce and prevent worsening of symptoms, increase coping skills, improve interpersonal functionality, and decrease the consequences of traumatic stress.

Viktoriia Vantsarovska works as a physiotherapist at the MSF rehabilitation project in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, with war-wounded patients.

Viktoriia is providing physical therapy to Andrii, who lost his right leg while fighting on the frontlines.

“I stepped on a landmine in Donetsk region in July and since then I’ve had six surgeries. My right leg was amputated, and I also have nerve damage in my left arm. The physiotherapists always try new activities and approaches to help me. I would be immobilised without physio,” says Andrii.

Viktoriia Vantsarovska works as a physiotherapist at the MSF rehabilitation project in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, with war-wounded patients. Ukraine, September 2023.

MSF teams are supporting seriously injured post-surgery patients with specialised physiotherapy and post-operative care in Cherkasy region in order to aid in their longer term recovery.