On January 20, at the instruction of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegation to Ukraine, Juan-Pedro Schaerer, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine to discuss several inappropriate public statements made by the Committee’s leadership.
During the meeting, the Ukrainian side expressed deep disappointment with the statement of the ICRC Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia dated January 14, 2026, which, in effect, equates the responsibility of the Russian Federation as an aggressor state with that of Ukraine, which is defending itself and its people, for the resulting human suffering.
The Ukrainian side emphasized that, unlike the aggressor state, Ukraine strikes only legitimate military targets of the enemy within the framework of exercising its inalienable right to self-defense in accordance with the UN Charter. In this context, any attempts to identify, equate, or draw false parallels between Ukraine and Russia are immoral, erroneous, and absolutely unacceptable.
Ukraine, for its part, expects the Committee to be more persistent in its efforts to ensure uninterrupted access to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians illegally detained by the Russian Federation, as well as to provide appropriate public communication on these issues.
On their side, ICRC representatives acknowledged the inappropriateness of such attempts to equate responsibility and agreed on the need to improve the Committee’s communication approaches in the future. Juan-Pedro Schaerer also noted that he and his colleagues in Kyiv understand the real humanitarian situation well and have experienced firsthand the consequences of Russian attacks.
The parties agreed to further strengthen bilateral dialogue, including through visits, in order to ensure a deeper understanding by the ICRC of the current humanitarian crisis in Ukraine caused by the Russian Federation’s attacks, and also discussed ways to strengthen the ICRC’s efforts to gain access to Ukrainian prisoners of war and detained civilians.