Mr. Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator – Remarks at the joint launch of the 2025 Ukraine Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan and Ukraine Regional Response Plan, 16 January 2025

Kyiv, 16 January 2025

As delivered

When you watch these videos and visit communities, as we have done in recent days, you’re reminded that the numbers that we talk about today are not the real issues here, it is the lives behind the numbers that count and motivates us to do better.

I want to say unequivocally to those under the bombs, to those trying to rebuild lives, to those trying to just continue lives in these circumstances, to all those in dire humanitarian need – and I will say this on behalf of the UN family: we have been with you, and we are with you today, and we will be with you.

Ambassadors, colleagues, dear friends,

Thank you for being here at this launch of our plan for 2025. It is of course a profound, sobering moment for the people of Ukraine as we approach the three-year mark of the full-scale war.

So thank you Ms. Vereshchuk for your words and for the genuine, exceptional, unique partnership that we have forged with the authorities here as we seek to working out where to meet the needs the Ukrainians face.

And as you said, there’s a danger with crises like these, of this intensity and ferocity and this duration, that we become fatigued. It is understandable that the Ukrainian people have become fatigued. But the international community has no excuse to become fatigued. We cannot allow the abnormal to become norm. Ukraine has not lost its courage. We, as humanitarians, must not lose our heart.

Instead, we must strengthen our solidarity with all who need our support, work tirelessly to improve our humanitarian delivery and listen, as we’ve been doing this week, to you. Listen to the communities who will tell us what they need.

The numbers paint a bleak picture: in 2025, a staggering 36 per cent of people will need humanitarian support as the war continues unabated, destroying so many lives.

And that is why, as you heard, on my first visit here as [Emergency Relief] Coordinator, I chose to go east where these needs are starkest.

It is sobering to walk through a completely bombed-out medical clinic in Zaporizhzhia, knowing that 11 people – four of them medical staff – lost their lives there just a few weeks ago.

It is heartbreaking to see the anguish on the faces of the elderly evacuees I met in Pavlohrad who have lost everything and now need to rebuild everything.

But there’s also hope. In an underground school just across the road from that bombed-out medical site in Zaporizhzhia, built in only six months, parents and teachers – in fact the Head Teacher – taught me the word toloka – she talked to me how it means that communities gather together in times of stress, support each other.

I have seen unrelenting toloka this week in Ukraine. And my message to the world is that we need some toloka too. We must learn from the Ukrainian people.

I was also closer to the frontlines – near Pokrovsk, in Shevchenko and Kupiansk – and I have seen the courage of aid workers, almost all of them Ukrainian, and the determination of families who stay to rebuild their homes and their lives.

I want to pay particular tribute to the humanitarian workers in Ukraine. You have many heroes here in Ukraine in this period when you are under such pressure, such dire conditions. Your humanitarian workers are up there with those heroes. Their courage in going back towards the frontlines in order to support those fleeing matches the courage of anyone who I have met.

Ukraine – as you will hear from my friend and colleague the High Commissioner Filippo [Grandi] – is also a displacement crisis. As the fighting continues on the frontlines, more people flee to safety. But many are also unable to leave and we must also support them, wherever they are, and whatever they need.

In Pavlohrad, I saw how crucial the support is from humanitarian partners, for people who have fled their homes on the frontlines, not knowing where to go next, often without documents, without anything as the missiles are falling. In the transit centres for the displaced, we and our partners work together on the essentials, blankets, food, support in retrieving those essential documents, hygiene kits, legal help, advice on where to go next. Sometimes, as I saw time and time again, that human connection, the hug, that sense that we are together, that sense that we are not alone.

It is also important to say that we must never forget the plight of those who are living in the occupied territories, where the needs are extreme, and where the situation is further exacerbated by the lack of humanitarian access. We are determined to help change that.

We will continue to press for greater access, to deliver support to all people in need, whoever and wherever they are.

And let us not forget that communities in the west of Ukraine – and even here in Kyiv, as we have experienced, where we are, underground once again – have also been affected.

Relentless attacks against energy systems, homes, civilian infrastructure have rendered many hospitals inoperable, reduced access to livelihoods and essential goods, deprived people of heat and water during the coldest months of the year, and hindered children’s access to education – those crucial early months and years of education that risk jeopardizing the future of that entire generation.

So, the war and its broader impact are far from over.

But in response, Ukraine has become a humanitarian superpower. Six hundred humanitarian partners work tirelessly to deliver critical aid to millions of people. Over 70 per cent are Ukrainian organizations – I had the privilege of meeting so many this week, making every effort to get that support and save lives on the frontlines and across the country. I believe that when the guns fall silent and war ends, they will ensure that Ukraine goes from being importer of humanitarian support to being exporter of humanitarian support.

As humanitarians, we are committed to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.

We are also conscious that the international community must scale up investment in recovery and development to help communities rebuild and regain stability and address long-term needs.

While the war continues, our partners must be able to deliver aid to address immediate relief and save lives.

For that, they need the support of the international community.

The plan we launch today is the vehicle for that. We now need to fuel that vehicle. This year, we are asking for US$2.6 billion of funding. That will go to help 6 million people across Ukraine to meet their basic food, healthcare and cash needs. It will save lives.

More will be needed, as we will hear from Filippo, to support those who are also fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring countries.

Ultimately, we must redouble efforts to bring this war to an end, so that the Ukrainian people can build their future with security, justice and opportunity.

Let me repeat: you are not alone, we are together, and we are with you.

Thank you.