For neurosurgeon Mykola Polishchuk, his wife notes that today he takes medicine to unwind, to soften the sound of bombings in Kiev. The head of the Ukrainian Red Cross shares this during a pause from a trip to Madrid, where he sought treatment and received recognition with a Spanish Red Cross Gold Medal. In the middle of each day, Kiev, the city of drones, appears in the sky four times, a stark reminder of ongoing danger.
He repeats the figure, four times a day, counting with his fingers and trying to read the situation with his eyes. Despite the peril, he insists they cannot abandon Kiev. They must stay and endure, as many others are doing. In 2021, Polishchuk built an emergency neurosurgery system across Ukraine and later served in the health reform efforts under the presidency. After a two-year pause, he was elected president of the Ukrainian Red Cross. He recalls believing three months would suffice to weather the crisis, a miscalculation that overlooks the country’s deepest existential challenge since the Holodomor famine, which claimed millions of Ukrainian lives, including many direct relatives on his paternal side.
Polishchuk was born in 1944 in Lipyaty, a small village in Vinnitsa province. He speaks of the Holodomor, a time of terrible deprivation that left the land scarred. He describes how, in 1946 and 1947, there were no men to tend the fields; nothing to plant, nothing to harvest. As the son of a Soviet fighter returning home with grave injuries, he remembers how survivors hid their best possessions among bales of fodder to endure the darkest days. The memory of those years haunts him and shapes his resolve to help others in times of war and need.
The Ukrainian Red Cross leader was born in an era of global conflict and reached senior years while facing ongoing risk. He is described as energetic, tireless, and outspoken. He embodies a habit of relentless action, often tapping his skull with a raised index finger to emphasize his point. He has authored dozens of books and documents, spanning scientific works and political commentary, and he now shares perspectives that blend medical ethics with national service in a volume he calls Mid Two Centuries.
Polishchuk heads a solidarity network that has already supplied essential support to millions. It provides primary medical care to hundreds of thousands, and maintains welcoming spaces for tens of thousands of children while offering psychosocial assistance to countless war victims. Thousands of volunteers distribute millions of food kits and hygiene items, bringing basic relief to households shattered by missiles. The first immediate aid a displaced person receives is often food and soap, a small mercy in a ruined landscape.
– The Ukrainian Red Cross is making a significant effort, says the doctor.
-Yes, and it owes much to people’s generosity and to international support. In 2017 the state halted funding, yet conscientious companies, international federations, and the International Committee of the Red Cross kept the organization intact. Its resilience has shown strength in the war, and today it stands as the second-largest humanitarian network after the United Nations. Spanish backing has broadened its reach, and President Zelensky has shown strong support for volunteers.
– Volunteers, convoys, and the Red Cross headquarters are often targets in conflict.
– On February 25, 2022, the first day of the war, a Red Cross branch was attacked near Obolon. A local office was offered for use, and the team began operating from a hidden location. Humanitarian centers in cities such as Odessa, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhia faced bombardment. Today, aiding civilians remains a strategic objective of the conflict, and not merely a humanitarian gesture.
But that is a war crime, and volunteers have paid with their lives. How many has fallen? The answer is not shared publicly. The Red Cross works across unoccupied areas while coordinating with local federations in Spain, Portugal, Italy and beyond. Their network spans 193 countries, and it relies on international assistance to function.
When asked about communicating with the head of the Russian Red Cross, the response is firm. There will be no contact. The International Committee will engage with those on both sides of the conflict when necessary, but the Russian Red Cross is viewed as acting in support of military objectives and diverting humanitarian aid. That is not acceptable to the Ukrainian Red Cross.
What is most urgent for the Ukrainian Red Cross? Help in all forms. The organization seeks support for reconstruction, medical and social programs, and psychosocial rehabilitation. The need is present now, not in some distant future. The youngest volunteers pressed to the limit in the early days of the war distributed one and a half million aid packages from around the world. Polishchuk recalls the exhausted youth sleeping on floors at the Kiev headquarters during long, dark nights.
The sense of hardship echoes from Polishchuk’s childhood. In 1974, he and many others faced electricity shortages and restrictions. He remembers a time when visits to distant cities were a privilege and the library was a lifeline. He finished school in 1961, started college in 1963, and electricity only returned to his town in 1965. Today, he is a grandfather of six, and the family sometimes huddles in a basement during power outages caused by attacks on power facilities. He spent twenty-one years reading and working by candlelight, a testament to unwavering persistence even as the world around him darkened.
The head of the Ukrainian Red Cross is also a grandfather. He reflects on what future generations should never forget about this war. He does not speak in terms of a single set of lessons. Instead, he emphasizes the things his grandchildren should never forget: the moment a child heads to school when a bomb crowds the sky, the instinct to seek shelter in a bunker, and the relentless memory of those days that will linger for a lifetime.