Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has completed his visit to Ukraine – meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky and visiting the site of the recent Russian missile strike on a hospital in Kiev last week, as well as in the east of the country, in Kharkiv. As part of this visit, the UNHCR has announced a new $100 million fund to support Ukraine, particularly to address the cold winter ahead. In an exclusive interview with RFI, Filippo Grandi spoke to our correspondent in Ukraine, Emmanuelle Chaze.
RFI: Is this your sixth visit to Ukraine since the start of the large-scale invasion?
Filippo Grandi: To be precise, my first visit was before the large-scale invasion. Let’s not forget that the war here started in 2014, and the UNHCR, among other humanitarian organizations, has been present here since the beginning. At that time, it was possible to cross what was called the contact line. I remember in 2016, I visited Donbass, Donetsk, and Luhansk where we had a situation of displacement at the time. Everything that has happened since 2022 – and that’s when I came five more times – far exceeded the problems we had experienced before. This operation for the UNHCR, like for many other humanitarian partners, has become one of the top priorities of our work overall.
You met with the president upon arrival. What were your impressions of this exchange? It’s not the first time you’ve met with Volodymyr Zelensky.
A good understanding of views, a lot of collaboration. You know, it hasn’t always been easy, but since February 2022, we have made enormous progress in our collaboration with the government. I must admit, with pleasure, that the government has considerable leadership in the humanitarian sector. This is not always seen everywhere. So, we are very happy to support this primary role of the government that establishes priorities, helps us define respective tasks. We discussed this with the president. We also discussed two other important topics for us. One is the energy crisis, as it is called here. The fact that many electricity facilities have been damaged or destroyed by Russian bombings. There is a great challenge, especially in the perspective of a very harsh winter here. We also discussed the situation of Ukrainian refugees around the world.
During your visit to Kiev, you also went to the site of one of the recent explosions. It was the one against the Okhmatdyt hospital, I believe you were there.
Yes, a few days after that explosion, that attack, that airstrike in fact. I found it deeply shocking. Not because I have never seen destruction in my life, in 40 years of humanitarian work… But because destroying a hospital for children seems to me the worst offense that can be committed against humanitarian rights, international humanitarian rights. I have said it several times, but I repeat it, destroying a children’s hospital, a hospital where children with congenital heart defects are treated, a very important hospital, one of the most important in Ukraine and Europe in this field, is unjustifiable. It should be one of the most protected, most respected places in terms of humanitarian law. I wanted to go there right away, upon my arrival in Kiev, even before seeing the president, to express my outrage at what I witnessed, but also my solidarity with the children of Ukraine, with the families, with the doctors who work there. You know, I tell you this because I have told it, it shocked me deeply.
The doctor who guided me, who showed me the situation in the hospital, told me that at the time of the explosion, surgeries were being performed, where children were, you certainly know, undergoing open-heart surgery. They had to close the little bodies of these children and continue the operations elsewhere. Can you imagine the extreme danger represented by all of this? And they had to do all this in a hurry, while the hospital was being hit, damaged, glass everywhere, walls falling! It struck me. These are stories we hear today, unfortunately, in Gaza, Sudan, or elsewhere. But when you see it, of course, it’s very powerful.
There is another place, I believe, that is particularly close to your heart, it’s the Kharkiv region. You also visited there. Can you tell us a little about this visit and the work being done to support the local population and internally displaced persons?
This visit to Kharkiv comes six months after my last visit there, in the same city. I found a little less anxiety regarding the military situation, which remains extremely fragile, and despite the fact that the airstrikes, there too, have a terrible impact on the civilian population. At the same time, there is a lot of anxiety and apprehension about the upcoming winter. Winter may seem far away, we are in the middle of a heatwave in Ukraine, but winter is very close… In three or four months, it will be very cold in Kharkiv, as in the whole of Ukraine. We need to accelerate activities to prepare for the winter as much as possible. This was the highlight of our discussions with the governor, the mayor of the city, the district heads, and the affected population. They are very afraid that the winter will be very harsh.
You know, I said during this trip, the UNHCR mainly deals with displaced persons, refugees, people who have left their homes. But here, the challenge is rather the opposite. It is to ensure that people do not leave their homes, that they feel warm and safe in their homes. So, on security, on safety, there is not much that a humanitarian organization can do. But on relative comfort, a minimum of comfort in the apartments they live in, in the houses they live in, we will try to do our best. I announced that we have $100 million, thanks to our donors, already available for this winter preparedness effort.
Indeed, we have this dramatic and very worrying situation regarding energy throughout Ukraine. And since you went to Kharkiv, I will talk about it again. There is also the situation of internally displaced persons in the city, there are thousands of people. First, we need to understand this somewhat unique phenomenon of Ukrainian displacement. Obviously, if the strikes continue in Kharkiv, if winter comes and we’re not too close, there will certainly be people moving from Kharkiv to other areas, perhaps less affected by the war in Ukraine. At the same time, Kharkiv itself receives people from all around who are actually on the front line. According to the mayor, with whom I had a long conversation yesterday, there are about 200,000 of them. There is a lot of apprehension that this crisis could lead to a new refugee crisis towards Europe. I am more of the opinion that the risk we face – and this is not the least risk – is an increase in internal displacement.
What are we doing for these people? We mainly distribute cash to people who are particularly in need of support. We have become the agency, the organization that distributes the most humanitarian cash in the country today. We also have a program, not for reconstruction, because that would be going too far for us as a humanitarian agency, but to help people whose apartments have been damaged so they can continue to live there. These emergency repairs are a major program we have here and have deployed it throughout the country, at least in the war-stricken areas. We also have a more UNHCR-specific, more “protection” program, if you will, that provides information to people, whether it’s legal aid. Many people here have administrative and legal problems related to their situation. We also have a program to help people who have experienced trauma, especially children. Yesterday, I was with a displaced family from the border area with Russia, in Kharkiv.
The grandmother told me that the children experienced this evacuation from their village very traumatically. Because it took them many days, they couldn’t get out because there were bombings… The children went through all that in terror. They arrive, they are completely traumatized. There is a great need in this country to support people, to help them overcome this trauma. I’m just giving you examples, we do other things, but these are very practical operations that we carry out in the country.
Do we already have a somewhat comprehensive view of what has been achieved in terms of numbers? How many people have been signed with a figure? How many people, concretely, have been helped since 2022?
We have helped 30,000 families repair at least part of their apartment so they can continue to live there. 30,000 families, that’s at least 100,000 people – this is an example. We have helped at least 250,000 people with one-time assistance related to their displacement situation. We have distributed around half a billion dollars, these are dollar figures, half a billion dollars in cash since 2022. I’m giving you the figures, I don’t have the figures for 2014, but in 2022, 500 million dollars in cash have been distributed. Out of a total of nearly 2 billion dollars distributed by the United Nations, a quarter of these operations have been carried out by the UNHCR. We are accelerating these operations and will continue all of this. Of course, the needs are much greater than this, but these are not insignificant figures. These are figures that make a difference in the impact of humanitarian action, at least to alleviate the most urgent problems of people.