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Emergency cash enrollment centre in Odesa.

In the past year, more than 40,000 people in Ukraine have received emergency cash assistance from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency – immediately after evacuations from frontline or border areas or in the wake of Russian aerial attacks damaging their homes – enabling them to pay for food, healthcare, transport to safer areas, rent or home repairs.

Cash assistance has proven to be an optimal way to provide crucial aid to individuals in crisis, allowing them to best address their most urgent needs, while at the same time supporting the local economies, which have proved resilient in the midst of continued war. 

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, having entered its fourth year, has caused widespread destruction, displacement, and loss, with continuous missile and drone attacks damaging homes and critical infrastructure. Thirteen percent of Ukraine’s housing stock has been destroyed in the past three years, affecting some 2.5 million families, according to the newly released Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment. And the destruction continues. Ongoing hostilities and ground offensives continue to displace people from frontline areas, particularly in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Sumy regions. In the past six months, over 200,000 people fled or were evacuated by authorities, volunteers or civil society actors according to estimates by the authorities.

"In the wake of relentless missile, drone and glide bomb attacks on residential areas and intensified hostilities that continue to force people to flee and abandon their homes, UNHCR’s priority is to respond swiftly and efficiently by providing those affected with life-saving aid. By delivering emergency cash assistance, within just a couple of