Evolving humanitarian challenges in Ukraine: Frontline aid

A new DIIS report examines how humanitarian organisations in Ukraine navigated a rapidly shifting threat environment from 2022 to 2025. Drawing on fieldwork in Ukraine, the analysis identifies a three-phase trajectory:

- emergency improvisation during the early invasion,

- institutional consolidation as security systems matured,

- fragmentation in 2025 when funding withdrawals triggered a system-wide contraction of shared security infrastructure.

The report explores how drone warfare, electronic surveillance and digital targeting reshaped humanitarian security practice, further diminishing the protective value of humanitarian emblems and compressing safe movement windows. It also highlights the inequitable distribution of risk across the sector.

These developments, the report suggests, raise broader questions about whether principled humanitarian action can be sustained in high-intensity technological warfare without ringfenced funding for collective security architecture.