As Ukraine enters the fifth year of full-scale war, its people are facing an unprecedented assault on one of their most fundamental rights — the right to health care. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), attacks on Ukraine’s health care system increased by nearly 20% in 2025 compared to 2024, marking the highest annual toll since the conflict began on 24 February 2022.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, WHO has documented at least 2,881 attacks on health care across Ukraine, targeting health workers, medical facilities, ambulances, and medical warehouses. These numbers are not just statistics — they represent a systematic dismantling of a nation’s capacity to heal.
Alarming Rise in Attacks on Health Care
The 2025 Escalation in Numbers
The year 2025 saw health care attacks reach a peak in the third quarter, when 184 attacks were recorded in a single period — claiming the lives of 12 individuals and injuring 110 health workers and patients. These strikes constitute clear violations of international humanitarian law, yet they have continued with devastating regularity.
One of the most alarming trends was the tripling of attacks on medical warehouses in 2025 compared to the previous year. These facilities are critical links in the supply chain that keeps frontline health services operational. When warehouses are destroyed, medicines, surgical supplies, and emergency equipment cannot reach the people who need them most.
Over the four-year span of the war, 233 health workers and patients have been killed and 930 have been injured in targeted attacks on health care. Each figure represents a person dedicated to saving lives — or a patient already fighting for theirs.
How Infrastructure Destruction Compounds the Health Crisis
Winter as a Weapon
The winter of 2025–2026 has been described by WHO officials as the harshest since the war began. Repeated strikes on energy infrastructure — including thermal power plants and combined heat and power stations — have left millions of Ukrainians without heating, electricity, and running water.
In Kyiv alone, a January 2026 attack left nearly 6,000 buildings without heat in subzero conditions, forcing an estimated 600,000 residents to flee the capital temporarily. At temperatures of –20°C, water in pipes freezes and bursts, flooding buildings with ice — and the cycle of destruction and repair begins again almost immediately.
Dr. Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative to Ukraine, described the relentless toll: “Behind every one of these system breakdowns are families, elderly residents, and health-care workers who must keep saving lives while their own homes are without heat, water, or electricity. The burnout after four years of war is immense.”
When the Hospital Is Not Enough
The damage extends well beyond the walls of hospitals. New mothers discharged after childbirth, patients recovering from heart attacks or surgeries, and those returning home from cancer treatment face a second crisis: apartments with no heating, no electricity, and no running water. Medical care that begins in a functioning hospital is quickly undermined when patients recover in dangerous, freezing conditions.
The Growing Burden of Health Needs
Trauma, Surgery, and Rehabilitation Gaps
The ongoing war has produced a sharp rise in war-related trauma injuries, driving demand for surgery, blood products, infection prevention, antimicrobial resistance management, and rehabilitation services. Yet access to these services remains dangerously limited.
Only 4% of hospitals currently provide inpatient rehabilitation, and a mere 3% of health facilities offer assistive technologies such as prosthetics and corrective devices for amputees and injury survivors. As Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, described: “an amputee waiting months for a prosthetic” is not an abstraction — it is the daily reality for thousands.
In frontline regions, 59% of people rated their health as poor or very poor, compared to 47% in non-frontline areas, according to a WHO assessment conducted in December 2025.
Mental Health: A Silent Emergency
Anxiety, Depression, and Isolation
Alongside the physical toll of war, Ukraine is experiencing a profound mental health emergency. WHO data reveals that 72% of people surveyed experienced anxiety or depression in the past year — yet only one in five sought help. Stigma, inaccessibility, and sheer survival pressures prevent millions from receiving the support they urgently need.
For many, especially young people, the psychological wounds of war are severe. As Dr. Kluge noted, “a teenager too afraid to leave the house” is emblematic of a generation whose formative years have been defined by sirens, displacement, and grief.
Access to Medicines: A Persistent Barrier
Pharmacies, Prices, and Frontline Realities
Access to medicines has emerged as one of the most consistent and painful barriers to health across Ukraine. According to WHO data, 4 out of 5 people report difficulties accessing the medications they need — with 71% citing high prices as the primary obstacle.
In frontline regions, the challenge is compounded by closed pharmacies, persistent security risks, and severe financial constraints. A heart patient who cannot find blood pressure medication, or a person managing a chronic condition in a war zone, faces not just inconvenience but a genuine threat to their life.
Additionally, cardiovascular disease is surging across the country, with one in four Ukrainians experiencing dangerously elevated blood pressure — a direct consequence of prolonged stress, displacement, and disrupted health care access.
WHO’s Response and Relief Efforts in 2025
Reaching 1.9 Million People
Despite extraordinary challenges, WHO’s work in Ukraine during 2025 reached 1.9 million people through service delivery, medical supplies, patient referrals, and capacity-building — with a focused emphasis on frontline and hard-to-reach communities.
WHO’s key interventions included:
- Crisis response: Delivered trauma care and medical supplies to 954 facilities, supported over 1,200 medical evacuations, and conducted health outreach in 131 hard-to-reach locations.
- Recovery: Maintained primary health care, noncommunicable disease treatment, and mental health services for displaced and conflict-affected populations.
- Rehabilitation: Rebuilt damaged facilities, installed modular clinics, and trained over 2,500 health workers to restore and strengthen the health system.
To safeguard essential health services through Ukraine’s brutal winters, WHO has also provided 284 generators to health facilities across 23 oblasts.
The Road Ahead: Funding and Future Support
WHO’s 2026 Ukraine Appeal
Looking ahead, the scale of need only continues to grow. For 2026, WHO is appealing to raise US$ 42 million in funding to sustain its operations in Ukraine and protect access to health care for an estimated 700,000 people.
As WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated plainly: “After four years of war, health needs are increasing, but many people are unable to get the care they need, in part because hospitals and clinics are routinely attacked. Ultimately, the best medicine is peace.”
The international community faces a critical choice: sustain meaningful, funded support for Ukraine’s health system — or allow a preventable humanitarian catastrophe to deepen with each passing month.
