Ukraine: Humanitarian Access Snapshot (January to February 2025) [EN/UK]

In the first two months of the year, despite high-level diplomatic developments, heavy fighting in Ukraine continued and limited humanitarian access, making it harder to deliver life-saving aid to the people worst affected, especially in front-line areas. Even without significant changes in the front line, access challenges for the humanitarian organizations active in this area continued. There was a slight decrease in the incidents reported in January–February 2025 to 47 incidents from the 50 reported in November–December 2024.

The risk to aid workers remained as grave as they were throughout 2024, with frequent drone attacks, bombs and missile strikes near the front line and on densely populated areas with active humanitarian presence. The share of incidents involving violence against humanitarian personnel, assets and facilities doubled from 12 to 25. Attacks within 10 kilometres of the front line injured seven humanitarian workers in six of the seven incidents reported over this period. In addition to these attacks, strikes in the urban centres of Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Sloviansk damaged humanitarian assets and facilities, including offices and guesthouses supporting humanitarian response in these oblasts.

Restriction on the movement of humanitarian partners was reported eight times, with six incidents recorded in Sumska Oblast alone. Stricter security checks by security services at the oblast checkpoints, first reported in November 2024, continued to cause delays and disrupt regular humanitarian activities despite ongoing efforts to improve access.

The military conscription of male staff working with humanitarian partners has continued to limit the ability of aid organizations to operate effectively. Reports under this category have notably decreased during the first two months of 2025 – 14 incidents were logged in this period, compared to 26 in November and December 2024. The Government of Ukraine extended the validity period for exemptions already granted. However, a significant number of humanitarian actors engaged in life-saving humanitarian response either do not meet the criteria to secure the exemption for all their staff or remain on the waiting list.