MSF accuses Russia of systematic attacks on Ukraine healthcare

Doctors Without Borders, known as MSF, said Monday that Russia's attacks in Ukraine appeared to form a deliberate strategy to damage the country's healthcare system and punish civilians, rather than being only an incidental result of the war. MSF said it had documented more than 20 attacks on facilities linked to the medical charity between April 2022 and December 2025.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. MSF said Russian forces had carried out repeated attacks on healthcare facilities and medical staff in Ukraine. Robin Meldrum, MSF's country coordinator in Ukraine, said in the statement that the attacks were too consistent, frequent and precise to be accidental. He cited repeated strikes on hospitals, attacks on ambulances using precision drones, and the killing of medical workers travelling in clearly marked vehicles.

The World Health Organization recorded 2,815 attacks on healthcare in Ukraine between the start of the 2022 invasion and the end of 2025. It said most involved heavy weapons, and that 2,319 attacks affected facilities. The WHO said the attacks caused 224 deaths and 902 injuries. The WHO records attacks but does not assign blame.

Ukraine's health ministry says Russian forces damaged or destroyed more than 2,500 medical facilities during the same period, including 327 that were completely destroyed. MSF said attacks on medical infrastructure have worsened access to non-emergency and chronic care, contributing to suffering and deaths from manageable conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and epilepsy. It said facilities still operating are severely understaffed, and that the number of doctors in an MSF-supported hospital in Kherson has fallen by 66 percent since 2022.

MSF said its teams in eastern and southern Ukraine are working under constant threat from First-Person View drone attacks, which can identify and strike targets in real time. It said a nurse and a director from an MSF-supported health centre were hit by a Russian FPV drone in Lyman, Donetsk, on September 29 last year while delivering medicines in a clearly marked vehicle. MSF said drone warfare is increasingly outpacing medical response, with drone strikes making up a growing share of trauma cases and causing multiple wounds, higher infection rates and more sepsis.

MSF called on all parties to respect international humanitarian law. It also urged states with influence over Russia to demand an end to attacks on health facilities, and called on the UN Security Council to investigate and publicly condemn attacks on healthcare. MSF said it had the equivalent of 414 full-time staff in Ukraine in 2024, a budget of 15.6 million euros, or $17.8 million, and carried out 75,400 outpatient consultations and 1,150 surgical interventions.