On February 18, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Mariana Betsa received Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Pierre Krähenbühl, who is on a working visit to Ukraine at the invitation of the Ukrainian side.

The main focus of the meeting was the discussion of the critical humanitarian situation resulting from Russia’s missile and drone attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure facilities, as well as the ICRC’s response to Russia’s systematic violations of international humanitarian law, in particular the inhumane treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians who are unlawfully detained in the Russian Federation.

“We once again call on the ICRC to take all necessary measures to ensure unimpeded access to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians whom Russia continues to detain unlawfully in inhumane conditions. We demand a decisive response from the ICRC to Russia’s war crimes. There can be no neutrality in these matters,” Mariana Betsa stressed.

In the context of the humanitarian response, the Deputy Minister expressed gratitude to the ICRC for the assistance provided, which has already exceeded 950 million Swiss francs, and called on the Committee to maintain and strengthen its activities in Ukraine in 2026 despite budget cuts amid the global humanitarian funding crisis.

The ICRC Director-General, in turn, provided detailed information on the measures being taken to ensure unimpeded access to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees held in the Russian Federation, and outlined the Committee’s vision for achieving progress on this issue.