The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is “very serious” and the international aid is likely to decline, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in an interview with the German Press Agency (dpa) on Jan. 26, reported German newspaper Zeit.
Grandi spent a week visiting aid projects in Odesa, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kyiv.
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Ukrainian society has shown itself to be very strong and united since the Russian invasion, but after two years of fighting, “the strain is visible,” he said.
The work of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations was well-funded in 2022 and 2023, but 2024 sees a threat of cuts because the Russian war against Ukraine has lost international attention, while the war in the Gaza Strip dominates headlines, Grandi said.
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The UNHCR, along with other aid organizations and Ukrainian agencies, has repaired over 27,000 homes since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, he said.
The UN estimates there are 3.7 million internally displaced people in Ukraine and another 6.3 million refugees in other countries, Grandi said.
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“Ten million people do not live in their homes,” the High Commissioner said.
“This also includes 1.3 million Ukrainians in Russia. This is the number reported by the government in Moscow. The UNHCR’s access to them is very limited, but not zero.”
Contact has been established with 70-80,000 people through visits and phone calls, he said.
2023 saw over 32 million border crossings between Poland and Ukraine, with only a 1% difference between the number of departures and returns, according to OpenDataBot, citing data from the Ukrainian Border Guard.
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