Since the beginning of the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Estonian Refugee Council has provided financial support to more than 100 000 people who are in need of food, medicine, hygiene products, and other essentials. On average, Estonian Refugee Council provided around 16 million euros for humanitarian aid.

“In the past three months, our local team has helped over 1000 beneficiaries a day. That's hundreds of lives saved, as people were able to pay a driver who’d been enabled them to take them out of the city before the end of the blockade. There are tens of thousands of people who were able to buy food or medicine. And this is happening thanks to the support of tens of thousands of both Estonian and foreign donors,” said Eero Janson, leader of the Estonian Refugee Council. He also added that the functioning of markets, prices, and the availability of basic goods and services are constantly monitored.

Financial assistance is provided in Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnepropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions, including the occupied territories. The amount of one allowance is 2220 hryvnias (about 70 euros) per person per month, which are transferred directly to the bank account of the one in need. The on-site Refugee Aid call center in Ukraine is now capable of serving about 1200-1500 people a day, providing advice and assessing the vulnerability of the indigents.

“The number of calls per day is very high and can exceed 35000 people just in one day,” Janson said. He added that this is why financial support is the most effective, since by directly transferring grants to a bank account, the needy themselves will be able to assess what he needs most. “Thus, we help those people who are in the occupied territories and because of which they have no opportunity to reach other humanitarian aid,” Janson added.