Country: Ukraine Source: REACH Initiative Please refer to the attached file. 2. Rationale 2.1 Background Four years after the escalation of the war in Ukraine since February 2022, the humanitarian crisis has become increasingly protracted, while continuing to evolve in scale, severity, and geographic distribution. As of early 2026, an estimated 3.9 million people remain internally displaced across Ukraine,2 while and estimated of 4.2 million people have returned to their areas of origin,3 and 5.76 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded globally.4 The overall context is now characterized by prolonged displacement, repeated shocks, and eroded coping capacities. Humanitarian needs remain persistent, although continue to shift in response to changes in front lines, patterns of attacks, and access to services. According to the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP), an estimated 10.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. Active hostilities persist across northern, eastern, and southern oblasts, with continued shelling, missiles, and drone attacks reported throughout late 2025 and early 2026. These dynamics have resulted in ongoing civilian casualties and sustained damage to housing, infrastructure, and productive assets.6 Recurrent attacks on energy systems and other critical infrastructure continue to disrupt the provision of essential services, including electricity, heating, water supply and sanitation, healthcare, and education. The 2025–2026 winter season was particularly severe, with cold temperatures, repeated attacks on the energy network, and eroded household resources compounding vulnerabilities and exacerbating humanitarian needs.7 In this context, many households face overlapping and compounding vulnerabilities, particularly during winter periods and in areas close to the front line. Findings from REACH’s 2025 Multi-Sector Needs Assessment (MSNA) highlight the persistence of humanitarian needs across the country, with a large proportion of households experiencing sectoral needs and a significant share facing acute or extreme deprivations in frontline areas. 9 Additional evidence collected through the Calibration Assessment in the beginning of 2026 points to sustained conditions in key sectors, particularly livelihoods, health, and access to services.10 The protracted nature of the crisis in these areas has deepened preexisting socioeconomic vulnerabilities, with livelihoods erosion, limited access to services, and protection risks continuing to drive humanitarian needs most severely among those who were most vulnerable before the fullscale invasion (e.g., older households and households with a member with a disability). Despite their protracted nature, the nature and severity of needs are not static nor monolithic: they vary across geographic areas and population groups and are influenced by ongoing displacement dynamics and repeated and new exposure to shocks. The humanitarian response environment has been further affected by continued reductions in funding throughout 2025 and into 2026, compounded by the ongoing effects of shifts in major donor priorities. These funding challenges have had direct implications for the operational capacities of Humanitarian Clusters, international and national NGOs, and Ukrainian civil society organizations (CSOs), leading to reductions in staffing, scale-back of activities, and gaps in the delivery of assistance across sectors such as cash assistance, health, water, sanitation and hygiene, protection, food security and livelihoods, and shelter. Further, the humanitarian community has continued to operate under a prioritised framework within the 2026 HNRP, focusing available resources on the most critical needs, including: (i) supporting the most vulnerable populations in frontline areas, (ii) facilitating safe and timely evacuations, (iii) delivering rapid assistance in the aftermath of strikes, and (iv) addressing the needs of the most vulnerable displaced populations. Against this backdrop of a protracted yet evolving crisis, characterized by sustained high levels of need, reduced funding capacities, and a prioritised humanitarian response, REACH Ukraine will implement the 2026 MSNA at the request of the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), in collaboration with the Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), to generate updated, robust, and actionable evidence on humanitarian needs and vulnerabilities to support response planning.
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