Medicine situation desperate in occupied Luhansk Oblast, with people putting up paper ads for vital drugs

In Luhansk Oblast, which the Russians occupied in 2022, the medicine supply situation is desperate. With no centralised delivery of medicines there, people are forced to resort to putting up paper advertisements at the entrances of apartment buildings in an attempt to source the medicines they need.

Source: Artem Lysohor, Head of Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, on Suspilne, Ukraine's public broadcaster 

Details: Lysohor said the Russians destroyed medical facilities and pharmacies in the occupied territories back in early 2022. Since then, the occupiers have only distributed medicines to people when Russian Kremlin-aligned media outlets were there to film them doing it.

"Now the aggressor is not rebuilding anything, and the situation with medicines has got worse because the locals’ purchasing power has obviously shrunk. Pensioners are no longer able to pay for deliveries of the medicines they need," Lysohor explained.

He added that most settlements have no internet or mobile connection. So residents of the temporarily occupied settlement of Rubizhne, for example, who are unable to source the medicines they need put up paper ads at the entrances of apartment buildings.

"There are some volunteers who sometimes deliver medicines, but there is no coordinated access to medicine in the territory about 60 km from the contact line. It’s a huge problem, and the enemy has no intention of solving it in any way," Lysohor said.

Read more: Russians reassign Ukrainian language teachers to teach Russian in occupied Luhansk

Luhansk Oblast State Administration has also reported that in 2023, the so-called Luhansk People's Republic [the part of Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast currently occupied by the Russians and pro-Kremlin collaborators – ed.] failed to use 99% of the funds that should have been allocated for medicines under the reimbursement programme. People were supposed to receive these medicines on subsidised prescriptions, some free of charge.

"They didn't use them [the funds] because they didn't want to. Due to the inactivity of the local 'ministry of health', the population that had been participating in the reimbursement programme for many years were forced to buy vital medicines at their own expense. They were left with no choice," the Luhansk Oblast State Administration says. 

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