On 3 March 2026, the Logistics Cluster marks four years since its activation in Ukraine. Activated in the earliest days of the full-scale invasion, the cluster began as an emergency coordination mechanism designed to keep humanitarian assistance moving amid widespread disruption. Four years later, it has evolved into a structured platform enabling hundreds of organisations to operate across one of the world’s most complex humanitarian contexts. Its impact is measured not only in the volume of cargo moved or warehouses managed, but in the strengthened capacity of national staff, the expanded reach of local organisations, and a coordination and information support system that allows humanitarian actors to work faster, safer, and more effectively.
Enabling Access in a Volatile Environment
Ukraine remains a highly volatile operational environment, where insecurity, damaged infrastructure, and proximity to active hostilities directly affect humanitarian access. In 2025, the Logistics Cluster supported 157 partners through coordination, information management, common storage, transport facilitation, and trainings. Coordination meetings served as a practical platform for partners to align plans, share constraints, reduce duplication, and adapt to rapidly changing access conditions.
Information management played a critical role in this effort. Through operational mapping, storage capacity tracking, service dashboards, and regular updates, the cluster provided partners with reliable data to inform planning, prioritisation, and resource allocation — strengthening collective situational awareness across the response.
Transport facilitation remains one of the most visible outcomes of coordination. In 2025 alone, the cluster facilitated the movement of 5,875 metric tonnes of humanitarian cargo to 222 locations, supporting 68 organisations — twice the volume, organisations, and destinations compared to 2024. This growth reflects both the scale of needs and the increasing reliance on coordinated logistics solutions.
Common storage continues to underpin operational readiness. With 11,100 square metres of storage capacity across four warehouses in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Odesa, the Logistics Cluster enabled 44 organisations to pre-position supplies and maintain uninterrupted assistance pipelines. For many national NGOs, access to secure warehousing significantly reduced logistical barriers and allowed them to expand their reach, particularly in frontline areas.
In hubs such as Kharkiv and Kherson, storage proved especially critical during the winter period. Damaged heating systems and energy infrastructure intensified needs, and timely consolidation and dispatch of winterisation supplies helped communities prepare before conditions further deteriorated.
Roman Somchynskyi, Senior Logistics Officer with ACTED: “The opening of the Logistics Cluster warehouse in Kharkiv allowed us to significantly increase the efficiency and speed of implementing our winterization programmes. Our existing warehouse could not handle such a volume of daily warehouse operations, and after obtaining additional funding, receiving, storing, and further distributing hundreds of tons of firewood and fuel briquettes within a short timeframe before the onset of cold weather would have been nearly impossible. Additionally, this warehouse together with the transport service enabled us to completely restructure our supply chain to Donetsk region in a single moment, which made it possible to provide people with fuel before the situation significantly deteriorated, thus easing their lives at least a little during this difficult period.”
The impact of the Logistics Cluster team extends beyond the Ukraine operation. The team is often among the first globally to pilot new optimisation features aimed at improving efficiency, transparency, and prioritisation, contributing to the development of digital logistics tools used across humanitarian responses worldwide.
In areas where commercial transporters are unable to operate due to insecurity or damaged infrastructure, WFP fleet trucks act as a provider of last resort, ensuring that assistance continues moving safely and efficiently into some of the hardest-to-reach locations. In a context where disrupted supply chains particularly affect local organisations, this facilitation remains essential to maintaining continuity of operations.
The breadth of sectors supported in 2025 demonstrates how logistics underpins the wider humanitarian response. Cargo transported included assistance for Shelter (51%), WASH (31%), Protection (20%), Food Security (6%), and other sectors - highlighting the cross-cutting role of coordinated logistics across programmes.
Inter-Agency Convoys: Reaching Hard-to-Reach Locations
Inter-agency convoys continued to play a critical role in 2025, particularly in accessing communities located close to active hostilities. The Logistics Cluster supported 51 inter-agency convoys, reaching 35 hard-to-reach locations and consolidating 562 metric tonnes of relief items for delivery.
These convoys represent far more than transport movements. Each operation involves identifying needs with local authorities, gathering partner cargo, consolidating items in common warehouses, conducting coordination and planning missions in advance, and ensuring secure delivery under volatile conditions.
In communities located just kilometres from the frontline, such coordination enables assistance to move where regular programming cannot consistently operate. The convoy mechanism demonstrates how shared planning and operational alignment make access possible in fragile environments.
Investing in People: Strengthening National Capacity
Over four years, the Logistics Cluster in Ukraine has increasingly focused on strengthening national capacity. In 2025, three Logistics Cluster Induction trainings brought together 76 participants from 43 organisations, reinforcing understanding of coordination mechanisms and available services and providing a platform for collaboration between organisations and networking overall.
Mykhailo Orban, Senior Officer, Logistics and Transport, IFRC:
'The Logistics Cluster Induction training was a valuable experience for me. It provided a solid foundation for understanding the Cluster’s coordination mechanisms and highlighted best practices we can apply in our operations. The training also opened the door to further engagement with the Logistics Cluster community, allowing us to participate in additional events and number of trainings (for example the ones arranged together with Atlas Logistique or DHL), and stay informed on developments relevant to our daily work in logistics. Moreover, the opportunity to connect with peers from other organisations proved extremely useful, fostering the knowledge-sharing, including the WhatsApp group which often has plenty of relevant and updated information. Thank you once again, and I appreciate all your efforts in strengthening logistics coordination in Ukraine.'
Collaboration with the DHL Humanitarian Logistics Academy expanded learning opportunities in 2025, with five webinars engaging 164 participants from 32 organisations. At the same time, technical resources were strengthened: the Ukrainian-language version of the Logistics Operations Guide became available online, and the Introductory Importation and Customs Clearance course was launched in partnership with IMPACCT and HELP Logistics. In parallel, the Logistics Capacity Assessment is being updated in cooperation with the Kyiv School of Economics and will also be available in Ukrainian.
Together, these initiatives reflect a deliberate shift toward localisation, ensuring that technical knowledge, tools, and coordination frameworks are accessible to Ukrainian practitioners. Four years after activation, national staff are not only participating in coordination mechanisms; they are actively shaping them.
Over four years, the Logistics Cluster has enabled the movement of assistance at scale, strengthened national logistics capacity, reduced operational barriers, and supported access to some of the most difficult-to-reach communities in the country. This sustained impact since 2022 has been made possible through the generous support of ECHO (European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations), France, Germany, Japan, USAID, as well as pooled funds CERF (Central Emergency Response Fund) and UHF (Ukraine Humanitarian Fund) - their funding has ensured continuity of coordination, transport, storage, and capacity-building services throughout a protracted crisis.
Yet the value of coordinated logistics goes beyond numbers. It is reflected in national NGOs expanding their operational reach, in humanitarian staff gaining technical confidence, and in communities receiving assistance despite ongoing insecurity. As the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year, the Logistics Cluster’s role remains clear: to support humanitarian actors in delivering assistance efficiently, collaboratively, and safely - ensuring that even in the most challenging conditions, coordination continues to turn plans into tangible results on the ground.
Four Years of Coordinating Humanitarian Logistics in Ukraine
On 3 March 2026, the Logistics Cluster marks four years since its activation in Ukraine. Activated in the earliest days of the full-scale invasion, the cluster began as an emergency coordination mechanism designed to keep humanitarian assistance moving amid widespread disruption. Four years later, it has evolved into a structured platform enabling hundreds of organisations to operate across one of the world’s most complex humanitarian contexts.
