Home

10%

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

By The Global Fund

March 4^th, 2025

Français Deutsch Italiano

Dmytro Korobenko dreamed of traveling across his country – but he never imagined the circumstances that would turn this dream into reality.

“It’s hard for me to remember my life before the war, before 2022,” he says. “Everything has changed for me.”

Three years ago, Dmytro managed a restaurant in the suburbs of Kyiv. He was recently married, and after traveling internationally, he and his wife Olena hoped to travel across their own country before starting a family.

Dmytro Korobenko is a driver and coordinator for mobile health teams operated by Alliance Public Health, which receives support from the Global Fund.

But their lives, like the lives of all Ukrainians, were radically altered in February 2022.

At the beginning of the war, Dmytro quickly moved his family to western Ukraine, where the fighting was less intense. Once there, a friend told him about an organization called Alliance for Public Health, which was looking for drivers to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to eastern regions of the country. Dmytro signed up to help.

For three years now, he has worked as a driver and also coordinates Alliance for Public Health’s mobile clinic teams, which receive support from the Global Fund.

The mobile teams, usually comprising 10 medical workers and support staff, work on convoys of white vans equipped with a robust set of the latest medical tools and modern devices. The teams provide on-the-spot consultations as well as diagnostics and treatment for a range of infectious and non-communicable diseases including HIV, tuberculosis (TB), heart disease and others.

Dmytro organizes the logistics, assesses the security situation at the destination, loads the vehicles with medical supplies, prepares the convoys, and leads their departure from Kyiv. He and the team then pick up medical staff in the city of Kharkiv before traveling to communities in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

They prioritize reaching communities hit hardest by the war – communities that have been completely cut off from health services.

“In Donetsk region where we go there are no villages left intact. All of the administrative buildings, schools, kindergartens, everything is destroyed. We choose villages that have no hospitals, where there are no doctors,” says Dmytro.

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

One of the doctors Dmytro works with is Dr. Yulia Tatianchenko.

Yulia is a physician at City Hospital No. 3 of the Kharkiv City Council. When she’s not working at the hospital, she provides lifesaving medical care on the mobile clinic team. She and Dmytro have formed a close friendship, spending many hours together on the road, often under incredibly trying circumstances.

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Yulia remembers missiles flying closely overhead and explosions rattling their vehicle. She says the risks increase as the team gets closer to the frontlines of the fighting – but so does the impact of their work.

“The further you go, the more people you see who need our services. If we don’t go there, what will happen? In many of these villages we are the only ones providing health care,” she says.

She recognizes that working as a medical doctor in a war zone is dangerous. But she is reassured knowing that Dmytro oversees the team’s safety.

“We could get caught up in the fighting at any time. I trust Dmytro with my life,” she says.

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Even before the ongoing war, Ukraine had a high burden of HIV and TB. As in all wars, violence, destruction and displacement fuel the spread of disease and decimate local health systems.

The Global Fund’s agility and responsiveness to crises saves lives – with approximately one-third of Global Fund investments going to countries and communities in crises.

To protect progress made in the fight against deadly diseases in Ukraine, the Global Fund collaborates with partners to strengthen health care and community systems, ensuring continued access to lifesaving prevention, testing and treatment for HIV, TB and other diseases. This includes support for these mobile health teams.

“The people we treat are in a very difficult situation – but on every mission I tell them, ‘We will be back.’ I leave hopeful that it is not the last time we will see these patients – and I try to instill this same hope in them as well,” says Yulia.

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Dmytro says that, prior to the war, he didn’t know any doctors.

“I would not have had a chance to meet Yulia if it wasn't for the war,” he says.

Both Dmytro and Yulia say that despite the risks, they will continue being part of the mobile health teams for as long as their services are needed.

They agree that it is the people they treat who motivate them to never give up.

“They do not lose hope, they live on. And when you look at such people and think that they do not lose hope – you certainly cannot lose it,” says Yulia.

The mobile clinics have completed 497 missions, reaching an estimated 20,000 people.

Since February 2022, more than 14 million people in Ukraine have been forced from their homes. More than 1,500 health facilities have been attacked, leaving health care workers and patients displaced, injured or dead.

Despite these monumental challenges, these mobile teams continue to deliver health care to those most in need, and they remain Ukraine’s only line of defense against the spread of deadly disease.

Dmytro and Yulia Face the Frontlines of War to Deliver Lifesaving Care in Ukraine

Footnotes

Story by Kate Baklitskaya. Photos by Oleksandr Rupeta/VII. Special thanks to Alliance for Public Health.

FootNotes

Story by Kate Baklitskaya. Photos by Oleksandr Rupeta/VII. Special thanks to Alliance for Public Health.

© 2026 The Global Fund

Wie es einem Land gelingt, das Blatt gegen einen alten Killer zu wenden

Bekämpfung der medikamentenresistenten Tuberkulose in Indonesien

Quand un pays inverse la tendance d’une maladie meurtrière ancestrale

La lutte de l’Indonésie pour mettre fin à la tuberculose pharmacorésistante

How One Country Is Turning the Tide Against an Ancient Killer

Indonesia’s Fight to Defeat Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Docteure Bintou et Fanta : une collaboration intergénérationnelle pour vaincre le sida au Mali

October 27^th, 2025

Dr. Bintou and Fanta: United Across Generations to End AIDS in Mali

October 27^th, 2025

Medizinische Hilfskräfte revolutionieren Gesundheitsversorgung von Gemeinschaften in Äthiopien

September 8^th, 2025

Loading, please hold on.