Ukraine
Project HOPE is implementing a highly coordinated, comprehensive humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our team on the ground is delivering medicines, medical supplies, equipment, trauma care trainings, and other essential items to healthcare systems in 23 oblasts of Ukraine. We are also providing primary health, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), protection, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to communities affected by the armed conflict.
Project HOPE has established seven regional offices inside Ukraine — as well as offices in Poland and Moldova, where our team is working with local partners to address gaps in essential services for Ukrainian refugees and host communities, including primary health, MHPSS, and protection services.
In the first four months of our response, Project HOPE delivered 300 pallets of lifesaving medicines and medical supplies to healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Since March 2022, Project HOPE has supported more than 300 healthcare facilities in Ukraine, delivered more than $11 million in medicines and medical supplies, provided more than 685,000 medical consultations through 31 Mobile Medical Units and surge staff support activity, distributed around 6 mln. liters of bottled drinking water and provided MHPSS services to almost 113,000 Ukrainians.
>> Read our latest Situation Report on the Ukraine crisis
About Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe and is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia. Ukraine borders Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Russia, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. Ukraine was a part of the former Soviet Union and gained full independence with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
Ukraine has been divided among regional and ethnic lines since its independence and has experienced multiple conflicts. In 2014, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas War in eastern Ukraine caused 10,000 civilian casualties, internally displaced 1.4 million, and created a humanitarian crisis that impacted nearly 3 million people at the time.
The 2022 Russian invasion
Conflict broke out across Ukraine after a Russian military incursion began on February 24, 2022. Since the full-scale invasion began, Russia has occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine and launched thousands of deadly missile attacks across the country. More than 6 million people have made the difficult decision to leave Ukraine and are now refugees in other countries, while another 5 million are internally displaced inside the country. Since February 2022, there have been 9,177 civilian deaths and 15,993 civilian injuries, with the entire Ukrainian population — more than 36 million people — living through unimaginable atrocities and enduring multiple humanitarian crises.
Russia’s invasion has devastated Ukraine’s health care system, especially in communities that have experienced heavy fighting. In the early days of the conflict, the infrastructure to deliver food and medicine had been destroyed. Pharmacies and stores in hard-hit cities had been emptied, and many hospitals and health facilities were targeted and destroyed by Russian forces. Ukraine’s health system continues to be deeply affected by the conflict — more than 1,067 health facilities have been attacked since the conflict began — but humanitarian actors like Project HOPE are partnering with local health workers and government officials to meet the health and humanitarian needs of Ukraine’s resilient communities.
The conflict has also had a profound impact on neighboring countries that have taken in large numbers of refugees, with both Ukrainian refugees and host communities in Poland, Moldova, and Romania experiencing gaps in essential services, including primary health, MHPSS, and protection services.
Project HOPE’s Impact in Ukraine
Since March 2022, Project HOPE has assisted communities affected by the violence by:
- Supporting 314 health facilities in Ukraine
- Delivering more than $11 million in pharmaceuticals and medical commodities
- Providing MHPSS services to more than 113,000 Ukrainians
- Launching 31 Mobile Medical Units, which have since provided more than 326,000 medical consultations to almost 153,000 patients in Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Donetsk, and Kharkiv regions
- Providing almost 360,000 medical consultations in 23 healthcare facilities across Ukraine for 177,000 patients
- Completing 9 out of 12 reconstruction projects at healthcare facilities in Kyiv, Cheriniv, and Kharkiv oblasts
- Providing training to more than 5,900 health workers in 87 healthcare facilities
- Delivering 6mln. liters of drinking water to more than 500,000 affected Ukrainians and 12 hospitals.
- Distributing around 133,000 hygiene kits
- Donating and installing 234 generators in 128 facilities across Ukraine
- Providing gender-based violence response services to more than 19,600 people
- Opening seven in-country offices in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kramatorsk, Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa
In 2022-2023, Project HOPE was awarded a 15-month program by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which reached more that 1 million people and 23 health facilities over the full year of the program.
Since September, 2023 Project HOPE started a new Emergency Assistance for Conflict-Affected Populations (EACAP) Program with BHA, which is aiming to cover even wider amount of affected population close to the frontline.
Our History in Ukraine
Project HOPE began working in Ukraine in 2002 with a life-skills program focused on drug use prevention, HIV prevention, and education for children in primary schools. In 2007, Project HOPE began a five-year, USAID-funded HIV/AIDS Service Capacity project in Ukraine, which focused on the mobilization of communities most at risk of contracting and transmitting the disease.
From 2012-2017, Project HOPE helped improve the health of Ukrainians by partnering with the Government of Ukraine to decrease the incidence and strain of tuberculosis (TB) on Ukraine’s health system and improve outcomes for people living with TB.