Operational update: Assisting communities in winter in the Russia-Ukraine International Armed Conflict

Support to frontline communities 

In its ongoing humanitarian response, the ICRC continues to assist the most vulnerable communities, including the elderly, people with disabilities or mobility issues, single-parent families and the unemployed in remote areas along front-line or border areas 
To ensure a timely response, the ICRC started distributing winter assistance as early as August, well ahead of the cold season, and established contingency stocks to prepare for emergencies.

This year, 18,464 households* will receive cash grants of 364CHF each.

Moreover, ICRC shelter activities in Chernihiv Oblast will benefit 1,200 individuals, with more than 400 households supported through repairs and cash to make homes habitable before winter. In Mykolaiv and Kherson oblasts, repair works on houses will improve living conditions for affected communities, benefiting 1,710 people and supporting more than 570 households. The ICRC will also restore 12 multi-story residential buildings in Kharkiv Oblast, including by repairing roofs and common areas, which will benefit over 800 individuals.

Urban resilience

Communities in urban centres remain vulnerable to, and affected by, disruptions in essential services. The ICRC aims to enhance the resilience of water, wastewater and electrical systems by strengthening utility providers' capacities  to absorb, adapt, respond to and recover from conflict-related shocks and improve their emergency response capacity. Supporting these systems ensures that other essential services can continue to operate. As part of its urban resilience approach, the ICRC supports the maintenance of a combined heat and power plant in Mykolaiv and Kherson, another heating company in Chernihiv as well as heating utilities in Zelenodolsk, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, serving an estimated 435,000 people.

Health facilities and social institutions

To support essential service providers – such as health facilities – in the coming winter, 2,635 tonnes of briquettes that can be burned as solid fuel for heating will be distributed to 35 facilities, including 10 hospitals. Such support measures will also reach 12 social institutions.

Places of detention

Continued support to several places of detention focused on resilience, infrastructure and living conditions. In one internment camp for POWs, a transformer was donated to strengthen the electrical system. In another facility, conditions were improved through the renovation of additional cells, a medical dressing room and the exercise yard.

In one facility, windows were installed and replaced in the accommodation building, while at another additional windows were replaced to further improve living conditions. At a third facility, works included repairs of the food storage roof and renovations of the accommodation building, with improvements to the heating network planned.

In cooperation with relevant authorities in Ukraine, the ICRC donated generators to 11 places of detention and disinfection chambers to five. 

The ICRC will also provide 96 tonnes of briquettes to places of detention.

* All statistics as of November 2025