Damir is two months old. His mother, Kateryna Murashkina, is 17 years old. Since his birth, he has been bathed twice — once in the hospital and once on a rare day when the electricity was turned on for a short time.
“Now we use wipes because it’s very cold,” says Kateryna. “The room doesn’t have time to warm up enough to bathe him. I’m afraid the baby will catch a cold.”
Kateryna and Damir live in a former scientific institute in Dnipro, which was converted into a shelter in 2022, where Doctors Without Borders teams now provide medical consultations to internally displaced persons. Currently, about 270 people live there, who were forced to leave the occupied territories or cities that have been reduced to ruins. Due to constant shelling of energy infrastructure by Russian troops, the shelter’s residents had to endure days without heating, water or electricity, with temperatures dropping to minus 20 °C in winter.
Mobile clinics run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have recorded a significant increase in the number of people forced to flee their homes, as well as a growing need for medical assistance for internally displaced persons in Ukraine. The number of consultations provided by mobile medical clinics in 2025 has more than doubled compared to 2024, from 4,327 to 9,500.
For many people living near the front line, the decision to leave their homes takes a long time and is extremely difficult, despite the great danger posed by the approaching front line. With limited financial resources and few alternatives, older people and those with chronic illnesses often remain in their homes until prolonged bombing and the destruction of infrastructure and essential services, including medical services, leave them with no choice but to flee.
The scale of destruction in Ukraine is enormous and has only increased since the full-scale invasion by Russian forces in 2022. The nature of the fighting on the front line, which includes the use of artillery, drones and missiles, means that nothing and no one is safe when it approaches a particular settlement. Médecins Sans Frontières teams have also been forced to adapt, abandoning seven hospitals and more than 40 mobile clinic sites when the situation became too dangerous.
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Liman in Donetsk Oblast is one of the areas where Médecins Sans Frontières worked, arriving with mobile medical clinics, but the security situation eventually made it impossible to continue operating in this community. In June 2024, operations were completely suspended. Today, approximately 2,000 residents remain in this frontline town, which is shelled daily.
Lymansk was also home to 67-year-old Zinaida Babisheva, who now lives in a shelter for displaced persons in Dnipro. She recalls life before the full-scale invasion. She remembers taking tables out onto the street on holidays to eat with her neighbours. She remembers her garden.
“We had apples, plums, cherries, pears, peaches. So many roses and lilies,” she says. “Now my daughter grows flowers, but I no longer have the desire to do anything.”
65-year-old Lyubov Kuzmenko from Severodonetsk also lives in the shelter with Zinaida, Kateryna and Damira. She says her flat was looted after Russian troops took control of the city. But what weighs most heavily on her is being separated from her family.
“My parents remained under occupation. My father died in 2024, and I couldn’t go back to bury him. I send my mother video messages — it hurts me that I can’t be there with her.”
The war continues, and with it, many hospitals, pharmacies, schools, and shops have been destroyed or closed. Entire communities have become uninhabitable. Every day, the number of displaced persons grows due to the war, and humanitarian needs become increasingly complex and long-term.
Médecins Sans Frontières continues to provide medical and psychological assistance throughout Ukraine: supporting hospitals near the front line, organising ambulances for patients wounded during the war, and bringing mobile clinics to shelters and communities hosting displaced persons, as well as to places where people are trying to remain despite the destruction of infrastructure and the approaching front line.
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