‘The day never ends’ for aid workers facing missiles and drones in Ukraine

For Olga Scripovscaia, a field security coordination officer based in Odesa, every day starts with the same question: “what changed overnight?”

After a night frequently disrupted by air alerts and coordinated strikes, the morning was spent reviewing incident reports, checking the latest information from local authorities and monitoring conditions in Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson, areas where humanitarian access can change within hours.

“There’s always something going on here,” he said. “Things are never calm.”

‘A road that is usable today may no longer exist tomorrow’

Ms. Scripovscaia worked across UN agencies operating in southern Ukraine, helping to assess whether the mission could proceed safely and providing advice on movement plans, operational concepts and emergency measures.

His team monitors security conditions around the clock, makes brief reports after incidents and conducts personnel counts every time an attack occurs.

“A road that can be used today may not be available tomorrow,” he explained.

Conditions on the ground continue to develop. According to Ms. Scripovscaia, increasingly sophisticated threats, including mines and highly precise drones, require constant reassessment of operational routes and procedures.

If the mission is planned in an area where conditions have recently worsened, the team may need to change the route or postpone the deployment entirely.

‘You see tears. You see the emotions’

Coming from a military background, he said structure remains critical to managing the volume of information and decisions flowing through security operations.

But she believes her experience as a woman in the field will shape the way she approaches her work.

“As a woman, maybe you see more than just protocol,” she said. “You see tears. You see emotions. You see things outside of the procedure.” That perspective, he explained, is especially important before missions to difficult environments.

In addition to formal safety briefings, he also pays attention to coworkers’ feelings, asking whether they feel prepared, whether they understand the risks, and whether they need more information before deployment.

When security and humanitarian needs collide

One of the hardest parts of the job, Ms. Scripovscaia, is supporting humanitarian access to locations where people urgently need help, but conditions remain dangerous.

He describes a recurring dilemma: balancing professional responsibilities with humanitarian needs.

Humanitarian agencies sometimes seek access to locations where the risk remains very high and local support networks may no longer exist.

For security teams, these decisions are rarely made directly.

“The protocols give me probably 75 percent of the reasons to say no,” he said. “But I still keep 25 percent in my heart for those people.”

Find another way

When a mission can’t continue, he said, the conversation doesn’t end there.

Instead, the focus shifts to finding other means, whether through rerouting, reassessing conditions, or identifying future access windows.

For him, this persistence reflects the purpose of security work in humanitarian situations. “If it’s not possible today,” he said, “we’re already thinking about how to make it happen tomorrow.”