Supporting border communities in Kharkiv Oblast
Published: Nov 26, 2025 Reading time: 2 minutes Share: Share an articleDaily shelling robs border communities of safety and the ability to survive. Food, medicine, hygiene items—things most of us take for granted—have become luxuries to the people in these communities.
We continue to cover to remote villages and towns so people, who have courageously chosen to remain, are not left alone. In this photo report, come and see the brave residents of Pysarivka, a village in Kharkiv Oblast. Learn how they live and hold on where the war is always near.
Rarely does Pysarivka see a calm day, that is a day without an air-raid siren and shelling. This village in Kharkiv Oblast lies just 17 kilometers from the Russian border. Here, living in constant fear for her three children, lives Alona, a teacher.
“Explosions are heard all the time. You learn to understand where it’s coming from, where it’s going, how dangerous it is. Sometimes the explosions are very loud, and the children get scared. We immediately hide. But the worst thing is that the children have begun to get used to all this,” she says.
Due to the constant threat of shelling, Alona’s children study online. But when an air-raid alerts last for hours, classes may not take place at all. Her older children still remember classrooms and noisy breaks, but her 7-year-old son has never been to school because of the war.
“His biggest dream is to go to school like his brother and sister and simply sit at a desk,” Alona says.
The family has many needs—warm clothes, medicine, utility payments. To buy firewood for winter, they have to save money for months. Naturally, so close to the front, there is hardly any work—yet people’s needs keep growing.
“Because of the fighting, residents face major difficulties accessing goods, including hygiene items. Delivery is complicated. It’s dangerous, and people struggle to reach the shops. Assistance is urgently needed,” explains Anton Kramar, programme officer at People in Need.
Thanks to the support of the Government of the Czech Republic, we delivered hygiene kits to Pysarivka. We distributed these to those who needed them most—pensioners, people with disabilities, and large families.
In 2025, we provided hygiene assistance in Kharkiv and in six others oblasts: Sumy, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Dnipropetrovsk. In total, more than 14,000 families were assisted. In locations where people could buy for themselves, we issued vouchers. In settlements with difficult logistics, we delivered kits directly. All of this was made possible with the support of the European Union, the Government of the Czech Republic, and the American and Czech people.
