Ms. Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnerships Division, OCHA, on behalf of Mr. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator - Briefing to the Security Council on Ukraine, 29 May 2025

New York, 29 May 2025

As delivered

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President,

Thank you for the opportunity to brief the Council on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine.

Since our last update to this Council one month ago, attacks have continued to exact a staggering toll on civilians in Ukraine. Over just the past week, the humanitarian consequences have worsened – marked by forced displacement, the destruction of essential infrastructure, and the disruption of basic services.

Despite peace talks earlier this month, a series of air strikes and other hostilities – especially over the past weekend – caused civilian casualties across Ukraine, including the killing of three children. According to the UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR, at least 14 civilians were killed and over 39 injured. The attacks also caused extensive damage to civilian infrastructure, homes and schools, including in densely populated areas.

Healthcare services remain under severe strain, particularly in the front-line areas of Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. These disruptions are limiting access to trauma care and other critical services, putting the sick and injured at serious risk. The World Health Organization has now verified more than 200 attacks affecting healthcare facilities, personnel, transport, supplies and patients across Ukraine in 2025.

Mr. President,

Civilians continue to face constant and grave dangers – particularly in the east, the south, and along the northern border regions.

Missile and drone attacks over the past week have caused extensive civilian casualties and damaged residential buildings and essential infrastructure, including gas pipelines, schools and public transport across at least 10 regions far from the front line – including Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytskyi*.

These incidents underscore the continued vulnerability of civilians nationwide, including the more than 3.7 million people currently displaced across Ukraine. This past week alone, more than 5,000 people – mainly from Kherson, Donetsk and Sumy regions – were newly displaced as violence escalated.

According to unverified reports, civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure were also recorded in the Kursk and Belgorod regions of the Russian Federation.

As the Secretary-General reaffirmed earlier this week – and as we have said multiple times before – under international humanitarian law, constant care must be taken to spare civilians and civilian objects.

Mr. President,

The war continues to have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, particularly in these forcibly displaced areas. Risks of gender-based violence remain high, with ongoing demand for protection services outpacing available support – especially in some front-line areas.

The dangers also remain high for humanitarian workers. So far in 2025, 37 incidents of violence impacting humanitarian personnel, assets and facilities have been recorded. Two aid workers have been killed and 23 have been injured while delivering assistance.

Again, under international humanitarian law, humanitarian workers and assets must be protected.

We remain gravely concerned about the 1.5 million civilians in areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia currently under occupation by the Russian Federation. These communities remain largely out of reach for humanitarian actors – not due to a lack of capacity or will, but because of persistent impediments to humanitarian access.

International humanitarian law is unequivocal: All parties must allow and facilitate the rapid, unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need. Obstructions that leave the civilian population without the essentials to survive run contrary to this obligation

Mr. President,

Despite escalating challenges, humanitarian partners – many of them local NGOs – continue to deliver vital assistance. This includes food, clean water, hygiene kits and protection services for civilians living near the front line, those in the process of evacuating, and the most vulnerable among the internally displaced. In support of local emergency teams, emergency programmes have also been carried out in the aftermath of recent attacks.

Over the weekend, the Humanitarian Coordinator Matthias Schmale and OCHA led an inter-agency convoy to front-line communities in the Kherson region, where daily shelling continues to threaten civilians – many of whom are older persons. During the visit, he met residents who have chosen to remain despite the risks, holding onto hope that, even after three years of hostilities in the area, life in their home communities would return to normal.

The convoy delivered dignity kits for older people, as well as first aid kits, hygiene and food kits. So far this year, 10 inter-agency convoys have reached nearly 14,000 people along the front line in Kherson.

The humanitarian response continues to serve as a vital lifeline for millions. Since the beginning of 2025, 440 humanitarian organizations, mainly local NGOs, have provided life-saving assistance to approximately 3.1 million people across Ukraine.

However, we are now more than five months into the year, and due to the sharp contraction in humanitarian funding, only a quarter of the $2.6 billion required for the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan has been received.

Funding shortfalls have already forced reductions in cash assistance, mental health support, shelter assistance, and services for survivors of gender-based violence.

Without urgent support, core programmes risk being suspended, just as needs are rising.

Mr. President,

Let me conclude with three urgent messages.

First: protect civilians and civilian objects. Attacks directed against homes, hospitals and IDP shelters must stop, as must all indiscriminate attacks.

Second: facilitate sustained humanitarian access. Humanitarian actors must be granted safe, rapid and unimpeded access to all civilians in need – wherever they are and regardless of which party controls the territory. We will persist in our engagement with the parties to this effect.

The Council and all Member States have much influence to exert to ensure both the protection of civilians and unimpeded humanitarian access.

Third: support the humanitarian response. Lives depend on it. Every delay costs lives. Every dollar helps us reach the next family under fire with aid, educate the next child out of school, help evacuate people with disabilities, and sustain water in front-line communities.

Mr. President,

There is no respite for civilians in Ukraine. The bombs do not stop. The trauma does not subside. The needs do not shrink. And so, our resolve cannot falter.

Thank you.