Our work in Ukraine

Amid the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has increased support for people affected by the violence by filling gaps in care. Our teams deliver emergency medical treatment close to the front line, while also expanding services in other regions to support long-term recovery, such as rehabilitation for trauma survivors and mental health care.

What's happening in Ukraine?

After eight years of low-intensity conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces launched an all-out military assault in 2022, causing thousands of civilian casualties and extensive damage to energy and other key infrastructure, particularly in the country’s eastern regions. Many homes have been destroyed and public services severely disrupted, including health care, water, and power supplies, and millions have been displaced.

MSF psychologist Vika hugs Antonina Sakhnovska, an MSF mental health patient in Kharkiv, when she begins to cry when she remembers her husband, who died in the war.

How we’re helping in Ukraine

As the war has evolved, we have adapted our response. In addition to providing essential trauma care in hospitals in Kherson, we have run mobile clinics and carried out ambulance referrals in all regions along the front line, which stretches for more than 600 miles. Our mobile teams screen for tuberculosis (TB) and offer treatment for chronic diseases, such as hypertension, mainly to elderly and vulnerable patients, many of whom have resorted to living in basements or shelters to escape the shelling. Our ambulances have responded in the aftermath of airstrikes, referring wounded patients to hospitals for care.

In 2024, MSF offered psychological care to people who had moved from Russia and Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine in a shelter run by local organizations in Zernove, Kharkiv region. In Pavlohrad, our teams provided mental health support and basic health care for people fleeing the encroaching fighting in Pokrovsk and Kurakhove in the Donetsk region. MSF’s office in Pokrovsk was destroyed by a missile in April 2024, leaving five people injured, including an MSF staff member.

We also expanded our mental health activities in 2024, focusing on treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at our dedicated center in Vinnytsia and establishing a professional and community network to deliver trauma care to displaced people. We also worked to reach people who have endured prolonged exposure to traumatic experiences, helping them manage their symptoms.

In Cherkasy and Odesa, MSF’s rehabilitation services include physiotherapy, mental health care, and nursing support for people who have recently had trauma surgery, including amputations. Throughout 2024, we continued to send professionals and medical supplies to hospitals near the front line to provide training and resources for mass casualty influxes.

MSF activities in Ukraine in 2025

10,722 patients referred by MSF ambulance, about 60 percent of whom had war-related injuries
12,904 patients admitted to the emergency department
1,053 surgeries carried out
552 patients admitted to the ICU
More than 9,800 physiotherapy sessions provided in Cherkasy, Odesa, and Dnipro
3,580 PTSD consultations provided in Vinnytsia
45,322 outpatient consultations
3,612 mental health consultations
3,211 sexual and reproductive health consultations
9,500 mobile clinic consultations for internally displaced people — more than double the number in 2024
Over $1.6 million in donations of medicines, relief items, and other supplies to hospitals, partner organizations, and displaced people