The United Nations highly praises Rinat Akhmetov’s help to civilians of the Donbas

The Donbas still needs humanitarian help from the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Representative in Ukraine Pablo Mateu said at the Foundation’s Reporting Conference.

According to Mr. Mateu, this help remains extremely important especially today, when the armed conflict in Ukraine is gradually falling out of the focus of international attention, being overshadowed by crises in the Middle East. Pablo Mateu said that some 5.2 million civilians in the east of Ukraine became victims of the armed conflict. Of them, 3.2 million (including one million elderly people) still need humanitarian aid.

“I was in the Donbas and saw a group of elderly people in some town. They told me that they’re waiting for help from Rinat Akhmetov. In other towns and villages, the picture was the same. I thank the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation for today’s event, and for the job the Foundation has been doing from the first days of the War in Donbas and which I saw with my own eyes,” the UNHCR Representative said.

Efforts of the Foundation and its largest program, the Humanitarian Center went down in history, and its experience in providing help in the conditions of armed conflict is still unmatched in Ukraine as it helped save lives of more than one million people in the country’s east.

“Thanks to a personal initiative of Rinat Akhmetov, kindness and help become visible and palpable, turning from abstract notions into concrete deeds and results. A million saved lives is not some beautiful expression. People in the Donbas have been suffering for over four years now, especially children and old people. This is one of the main reasons why the Foundation continues to help the region’s civilians. Its humanitarian operations in the east of Ukraine are the biggest and the most systemic in the country,” Natalia Yemchenko, member of the Foundation’s Supervisory Board said.

The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation was established in 2005. This is the biggest personal charitable initiative in Ukraine. Thanks to its important and systemic projects in healthcare, education and culture, the Foundation is known in all regions of Ukraine and abroad.

When an armed conflict broke out in the Donbas, Rinat Akhmetov was the first to stretch out the hand of help to civilians of the region affected by the conflict. The Humanitarian Center, the largest humanitarian program in Ukraine was launched in 2014. Since that time, its efforts helped save lives of more than a million people on both sides of the confrontation line. And every day, help continues to come to those who need it the most.