An article by François Grunewald, Chairman and founder of Groupe URD

This article presents a number of reflections based on 5 missions to Ukraine between 2020 and 2024, reinforced by over 20 years of field observations of conflicts in various parts of the former Soviet era (Chechnya, Abkhasia, Ossetia, Upper Karabakh).

Understanding

International humanitarian aid arrived in Ukraine with very little understanding of the context, its history and the human, societal and technological challenges that had shaped the Ukraine of 2022. It arrived with its own methods, modes of action and assumptions, developed in countries with little development, fragile administrations and civil societies that were more or less dynamic but very often very dependent on international aid. It found itself confronted with an organised country, albeit with its own cumbersome bureaucracy, but also with an extraordinary level of digitalisation, a world where the complex technologies of the Soviet world coexist with the very latest in modern technology.

The international humanitarian aid community found itself confronted with a civil society ‘in resistance’, well-versed in the trials and tribulations of the Maidan demonstrations of dignity and the 2014 war, and impressively mobilised to help the displaced, the vulnerable populations in the front-line areas, and the civilian and military wounded. What do these tens of thousands of volunteers do every day? Helping displaced people find accommodation, supplying food to elderly people in the frontline areas who are unable to leave their homes, facilitating evacuations from Marioupol or Liman, providing generators for health facilities in difficult areas, as well as weaving camouflage fabric for tanks, preparing first aid kits for women and men at the front, finding money to buy drones…

With the threat of corruption charges hanging over their heads, many volunteer groups, still rarely formed as associations under Ukrainian law, have developed fairly ingenious systems for tracing aid and ensuring accountability, based on the digitised systems of the Ukrainian civil registry, but not designed to be compatible with traditional aid methods. Hence a recurring complaint from these volunteers about the administrative burden of accountability imposed by their funders, who often make these requests but do not transfer the resources that would make it easy to respond.

Energy : one of the keys to a modern country with cold winters

In the Ukraine of the early 2020s, the management of energy, heating and access to water was based on technologies from the Soviet period. Heating in urban and peri-urban areas was generally collective, and calories circulated through huge networks of pipes bringing hot water from large coal, gas or nuclear power stations. In some cases, auxiliary electric heating systems existed in buildings and offices, while in rural areas, wood in various forms (logs, briquettes, etc.) was the key to heating. The ‘winterisation’ programmes, designed at the beginning of 2022 for the winter of 2022-23, had fairly light and classic components, with ‘winter’ kits containing warm clothing and materials for light building repairs (tarpaulins for roofs, plywood to close doors and windows, etc.).

The Russian bombardment of the energy infrastructure in autumn 2022 forced a ‘change of gear’ in the response, but one that took the aid players into unknown sectors: energy in an urbanised world, where part of the population lives in large buildings and where light and heat are key elements of life in winter. The massive supply of generators of all types and models enabled Ukrainians to get through the winter, but was carried out in a totally uncoordinated way. Second-hand generators, with no spare parts, were supplied at the same time as new equipment, but with no manuals or maintenance equipment. The Ukrainians themselves found it difficult to manage all these supplies, with the resurgence of the ‘squirrel syndrome’ making it difficult to optimise the distribution of all this equipment.

But, on the other hand, thanks to immense efforts and impressive sacrifices, the Ukrainian engineers constantly repaired, replaced and made everything work again. This was done while consuming large stocks of spare parts intended for the maintenance of old equipment. These stocks were largely exhausted by the end of the winter of 2002-23, leaving the country vulnerable for the following winter. The strategy put in place for 2023-24 was to ‘protect-repair-optimise’ the systems at all levels: anti-aircraft defence for the major infrastructures, sandbags and gabions for the smaller ones were the key to protection.

From the summer of 2023, instructions were given to the decentralisation players to consolidate their fuel stocks and better distribute the equipment received. As the winter of 2023-24 proved to be fairly mild, this strategy paid off in most parts of the country. There are still areas very close to the front line where everything remains fluid, and where the dispersal and mobility of small equipment is the key to the energy response.

Water

International aid in the WASH sector has come with its experiences in Africa, where small-scale infrastructure (wells, boreholes) and problems essentially linked to the bacteriological quality of the water prevail. In fact, most known water treatment systems are essentially designed to make water drinkable by treating it with filters or UV diode systems that eliminate bacteria and organic matter. In Ukraine, the situation is rather different. On the one hand, the ancient basis of the water supply system relies on large water intakes from rivers, which are piped to huge treatment plants (coagulation beds, sand filters, etc.) and then redistributed via large-diameter pipes to towns and villages, under the supervision and financial management of local water agencies, the VODOKANALs.

But the quality of the water distributed in this way varies widely, with a distinction between ‘technical water’ and ‘drinking water’. In fact, in many areas of Ukraine, the population relies on a drinking water trade, either bottled or bought from ‘kiosks’. Soil pollution is rooted in geological problems, in the history of pollution of the area from industrial and agricultural practices during the Soviet period, and in the impact of the conflict with the pollution of groundwater from chemicals contained in munitions and, in a large area of the south, from the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. In the coastal areas (Mykolaev, Kherson, Nicopol, Zaporizhia), dependence on surface water is essential due to the fact that, because of the geological characteristics of this strip of land along the Aral Sea, groundwater is salty and contains high levels of sulphur. The surface water disappeared after the dam was destroyed. It is only recently, with the introduction of the reverse osmosis technique, that this deep resource has begun to be exploited.

In other areas of Ukraine, the difference between ‘technical water’ and ‘drinking water’ remains, linked to geological factors: calcium in Kharkiv, iron in Sumy, etc., but also to the high level of corrosion in the pipes, often aggravated by the frequency of water supply failures in the pipes, which accelerates their deterioration. Here again, appropriate potabilisation techniques need to be developed, but these are outside the traditional toolbox of WASH operators.

The health system

The Ukrainian health system prior to the 2022 war was made up of several layers. On the one hand, the system was based on the heritage of the Soviet period, with its dispensaries (ambulatories) and hospitals (licarne) and management divided between the Ministry of Health (standards and regulations) and the institutions created by decentralisation, town halls and oblasts, for economic and overall management. The technologies of the time had their share of old techniques and approaches that are still effective today. This system managed all aspects of public health, as well as the specific needs of the ageing population (heart and kidney problems, cancer, etc.).

On the other hand, we have seen the emergence of modern medicine, which tends to be urban and expensive, relying on cutting-edge technologies, generally provided by civil society or the private sector. Finally, the mobilisation to help the wounded during the Maïdan demonstrations and then the 2014 war saw the emergence of a veritable culture of war medicine. Supported by a series of response lines, this practice of war medicine has been greatly strengthened, with specific approaches to reinforce the capacity of soldiers to care for the wounded on the front line, stabilise them and send them, under the control of the military administration, to the rear where technical platforms can intervene, or even refer to a third level.

It is worth noting the energy of the volunteers and the associations that support them in producing and supplying the front with individual kits containing the latest tourniquets and anti-haemorrhagic compression dressings. Once again, it should be noted that in the large quantities of medicines sent, there is always a large mass of products that are just about to expire, boxes sent incomplete and without instructions for use, etc. The system is learning very slowly… The war against hospitals, with the destruction of essential health services, will be one of the exhibits on show at the great tribunal of memory, and perhaps at the real tribunal of international justice.

Two major health issues will have a major impact on the country’s future. On the one hand, the large number of injured people who have undergone amputations and reconstructive surgery and whose bodies remain scarred for ever. On the other hand, all those traumatised by the war, wounded soldiers or those who have been brutally confronted with death, families of those who died at the front or under the bombs, sometimes with direct exposure to the bodies of loved ones, etc., who are marked in their souls. Dealing with these two types of injury will be one of the major challenges facing Ukraine in the future, while it will also be necessary to put in place a public health system that is adapted to the challenges of the post-war period: ageing populations, an increasingly urban lifestyle, but also the impact on health of pollution from the war period, not forgetting the ever-present effects of the Chernobyl disaster, with high cancer rates that have continued to affect populations affected by the harmful cloud and radiation since 1986.

Food aid, cash aid, economic support

During the Soviet period, mechanisms such as the national Red Cross distributed food to the most needy, particularly in special situations (very harsh winters, natural disasters, etc.). From the start of the war, large quantities of aid in kind were collected, particularly inside Ukraine, sent out and distributed. Thousands of tonnes of food, hygiene products and clothing arrived. Initially distributed mainly in centres for displaced people fleeing the combat zones, or even the country in February-March 2022, this aid in kind was redirected towards the difficult areas of the south and east, where it remains essential for areas with dysfunctional economies and destroyed infrastructures, as there are still many close to the front line.

Then the aid policy was put in place, which should enable the transition from aid in kind to cash/cash transfers, at least as soon as one is far from the so-called ‘contact zone’. In the Soviet system, as in pre-war Ukraine, pension systems for the elderly were one of the keys to the economic survival of elderly and vulnerable populations. Ukraine had modernised all this and created special systems for cash transfers during the COVID period. International aid was slow to understand the situation and to identify that there were effective systems in place. And, as is all too often the case, it set up its own mechanisms. So, alongside IPOPAMAGA, the Ukrainian social cash transfer system, international aid has set up its costly RED ROSE system, which comes straight from East Africa. Believing in its omnipotence, ignoring existing practices, whatever their performance, international aid continues to operate like a steamroller.

A few challenges ahead

The Ukrainians have demonstrated an incredible capacity for resistance in the face of aggression, resilience in the face of the challenges of survival for people and systems. They have welcomed international aid with great thanks and kindness, but also with a fair amount of frustration. How many times, behind the big smiles and the ‘diakouyou’ (thank you), there was also ‘who are these kids coming with their African experience to tell us what to do, when they know neither the context, nor the culture of our country, nor really our suffering? What kind of organisations are these that ask us to work in dangerous areas, ask us for lots of reports, and don’t even pay for the diesel to transport the aid to the front line or the salaries of the people who have to write the reports?

The challenges of ‘localising aid’ are clearly underlined in this Ukrainian context, where the person distributing aid in the mud and driving a small van through the woods of the front line turns out to be … a nuclear physicist; when the person managing the distribution registers was in his previous life a renowned lawyer at the Odessa bar?

International aid agencies have become ‘control freaks’ bogged down in their procedures and guidelines. How can aid workers manage gender equality and the risk of sexual violence with ‘women-men/girls and boys’ lists when all the children have been evacuated and only the elderly are left? We end up with unsuitable standard forms and the Ukrainian actors are exhausted in responding to our requests for ‘compliance’, even though they are well aware that in the face of the terrible reputation for corruption that affects Ukraine’s image, they have to be exemplary… Ranked at the bottom of the Transparency International scale, the country moves up a few places each year, with reforms and arrest campaigns even in the closest spheres of power. But there is a long way to go, and it is clear that in a world where many forces are against Ukraine, aid to this country cannot afford corruption scandals…

Humanitarian aid helped the country get through the terrible period of the invasion of February-May 2022. It made it easier for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to find shelter in the cities behind the border, in neighbouring countries, and even at the other end of Europe, where magnificent reception facilities have been set up (with a real imbalance in terms of reception for other populations in distress who are also knocking on our doors).

International support has enabled Ukraine to win the ‘battle against General Winter’ in 2022-23, without forgetting the importance of these ‘points of invincibility’ and the hundreds of bunkers organised to accommodate people fleeing fear, cold and darkness for a few hours or days. But obviously, the heart of what has kept the country going is its capacity for resistance, its energy to bring out incredible forms of mutual aid.

Now we have entered the ‘horror routine’. A bomb in Kharkiv, two Shahed missiles that the Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire failed to stop over Kherson, destroying and killing. Every day there are sirens and alerts, and people end up getting used to them, not even going to the shelters any more. Worse still, Russian bombing is becoming more and more systematic, using ‘double tap’ tactics: civilian areas are bombed, causing damage, and then when the SESU (Ukrainian Civil Protection) teams and ambulances arrive, the bombing is repeated to kill the rescue workers.

As for international aid, it too has found its routine, with convoys, dozens of online meetings of clusters, sub-clusters, working groups, etc. in person or by videoconference. In the end, daily life for aid workers in Ukraine is smooth. The restaurants are excellent, the Ukrainian colleagues are great. But this gives a distorted view. This long-term war is terrible for the Ukrainians. Every day there are convoys with coffins, every day there are new graves, every day the surface of the space with the little flags on Maïdan Square gets bigger.

For the Ukrainians, faced with the risk of despair, suffering and fear, they have to hold on. And for us, we’re going to have to come up with new ways of working alongside them, preparing for the future and managing the psychological, human, economic and environmental impact of this war. These are major challenges, which will require major efforts.

But of course, meanwhile in Gaza, Khan Younes is being reduced to ashes, as was Barmut. Israeli extremists want to recolonise it, just as the Russians want to rebuild Marioupol. The Israeli hostages, like the Ukrainian prisoners, are the victims of cynical games that undermine the very nature of humanity, and the massive bombardment of inhabited areas, in Gaza as in the Donetz. And on both sides, the cities of the future risk being rebuilt, in occupied Ukraine as in recolonised Gaza, on piles of ruins and heaps of corpses.

François Grunewald

Chairman and founder of Groupe URD

François Grunewald has been working in the international solidarity sector for over 35 years, after holding various positions with the UN, the ICRC and NGOs. Since 1993, he has been involved in Groupe URD, a research, evaluation, methodology and training institute specialising in crisis management, humanitarian action and reconstruction. He has carried out numerous research and evaluation projects on humanitarian and post-crisis programmes (Post Mitch, Tsunami zone, Somalia, Darfur, Central Africa, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Mali, Caucasus, Haiti, Syrian crisis, Nepal, Ebola, Yemen, etc.) for donors (European Commission, French, British and American governments, etc.), the ICRC, IFRC, UN and NGOs. He works on disaster management and resilience, as well as on population displacement. A former associate professor at the University of Paris XII, he teaches at various institutions in Europe, Canada and the United States. The author of numerous articles, he has edited several books, including ‘Entre Urgence et développement’, ‘Villes en Guerre et Guerre en Villes’, and ‘Bénéficiaires ou partenaires’, published by Editions Karthala.