U.N. officials report they are unable to provide humanitarian aid to millions of people in Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, putting those people’s lives and well-being at risk as winter approaches.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine six months ago, U.N. and private aid agencies have been able to provide critical humanitarian aid to more than 12 million people despite the security risks. However, only one million have been reached in Russian-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine during this period.
The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, says aid agencies have no reliable way to cross the frontline and distribute aid to the many destitute people in need of help.
“We regularly do not succeed in getting the security guarantees that we require from the Russian Federation in order to go across that frontline. We do have staff in those areas and the staff in those areas confirm that there are acute humanitarian needs.”
Speaking from Kharkiv, 20 kilometers from the frontline, Brown says Ukraine’s long, hard winter is just around the corner. She says she worries conditions for people living across the front line will get worse. She says a key focus of U.N. plans for the winter months is figuring out how to deliver and distribute aid to communities in these hard-to-reach places.
“We will have to work differently here. What is required, and again the authorities I met in the past few days, people need windows repaired. They need doors repaired. They need common heating, services. There are a lot of old people in the rural communities.
Can we work with small volunteer organizations to ensure that they are being checked on during the winter months.”
She says it is her job, not that of the U.N. staff on the ground, to negotiate with the Russian authorities for access to the area. However, she says the staff serves an important protection function by their mere presence. She says they can monitor conditions and inform the U.N. about the well-being of the people and their needs.
