PATTAYA, Thailand — Ten years ago, Ukraine wasn’t a relatively large recipient of international aid for health and family planning.
Russia’s invasion of the country last February changed everything. At that time, some 265,000 Ukrainian women were pregnant, as medical facilities were destroyed or becoming inaccessible.
Since then, Oleksiy Zhmerenetskyi, a Ukrainian politician who was at the International Conference on Family Planning, said the nation has relied on support from the United Nations Population Fund, the U.N.’s global agency focused on population and maternal and reproductive health. As of January 2023, 661 attacks have impacted medical facilities.
