Ukraine: The destruction of healthcare is not a random consequence of war, it is deliberate and calculated

Strikes on medical infrastructure and the crippling fear of attacks on civilians have created a crisis in access to healthcare for people in need of non-emergency medical treatment or treatment for chronic conditions. A Doctors Without Borders survey of 187 civilians in near-frontline regions found that those who ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’ had access to healthcare diminished from 72% before the war’s escalation to just 35% since. Those accessing care ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ rose from 7% to 35%. This translates directly into suffering and even death from manageable conditions – cardiovascular disease, diabetes, epilepsy – conditions that have become life-threatening due to interrupted treatment and delayed access. Healthcare facilities that remain operational are cruelly understaffed: in one Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital in Kherson, the number of doctors has fallen by 66% since 2022.

Doctors Without Borders teams in eastern and southern Ukraine work under the constant threat of First-Person View (FPV) drone attacks — weapons that allow soldiers to identify and strike targets with precision in real time. On 29 September 2025, a nurse and a director from a Doctors Without Borders-supported health centre delivering medicines in a clearly marked vehicle in Lyman, Donetsk, were struck by a Russian FPV drone. The director lost a leg in the attack. Under international humanitarian law, deliberately attacking clearly marked medical personnel or vehicles may amount to a war crime.

Doctors Without Borders medical workers near the front line, and in an early rehabilitation treatment centre in Cherkasy, are witnessing how drone warfare is fast outstripping the medical response. Where injuries were once predominantly caused by artillery, drone strikes now account for a growing share of trauma cases – producing multiple victims with multiple simultaneous wounds, higher infection rates, and rising rates of sepsis. 

A Doctors Without Borders surgeon describes a patient who arrived with an amputated right leg, an open fracture of the left leg, an open fracture of the right arm, shrapnel in the left arm, and multiple wounds to the chest, abdomen and head. Five surgeons operated simultaneously for around six hours. The same surgeon noted: “The first battle is against bleeding. If the patient survives that, the second battle is against infection. And many lose that second fight.”

This year marks ten years since the adoption of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2286, which unequivocally reiterates the protection of humanitarian and medical personnel, patients, and healthcare infrastructure in armed conflict. Doctors Without Borders calls on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law; on states with influence over Russia to use it to demand an end to attacks on healthcare; and on the Security Council to properly investigate and make public denunciations about attacks on healthcare as a way of showing commitment to UNSC Resolution 2286.