Protecting civilian infrastructure during war and the cost of service collapse
Published on 7 October 2026 at 02:28 GMT
By Editorial Team SDG16
A hospital can remain standing while losing the electricity and water that make treatment possible. A school can survive bombardment yet become inaccessible to children. Protecting civilian infrastructure during war concerns functioning services as well as buildings: the consequences of disruption spread through communities and continue after an explosion has passed.
Ukraine’s fifth joint Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, released on 23 February 2026 by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank Group, the European Commission and the United Nations, estimated almost US$588 billion in reconstruction and recovery needs over the following decade, based on conditions at the end of 2025. That figure covers the wider economy, rather than hospitals, schools and utilities alone. It illustrates how wartime destruction creates a long-term financing burden alongside immediate humanitarian needs.
How infrastructure becomes vulnerable
There is no single explanation for every damaged facility. Deliberate attacks, incidental damage during attacks on military objectives, military use of civilian premises and deterioration during prolonged fighting involve different evidence and legal questions. A photograph of a ruined building cannot, by itself, establish the intended target or the legality of the operation.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) describes urban warfare as particularly destructive because explosive weapons operate among dense civilian populations and interconnected networks. Infrastructure serving both civilians and military activity creates additional targeting questions. Its 2024 report on contemporary conflicts warns against treating such infrastructure as targetable merely because it provides some benefit to the armed forces.
Direct destruction is only part of the explanation. The ICRC report on urban services describes cumulative deterioration when repairs, skilled staff, spare parts and consumables become difficult to sustain. Networks that were already fragile can lose the capacity to absorb another interruption. In this setting, a service can stop operating without its main building being destroyed.
These pathways complicate claims that infrastructure is increasingly being deliberately targeted everywhere. Documented incidents and rising damage in a particular conflict do not establish a uniform global trend in intent. The distinction matters because identifying an attack, explaining a service outage and proving an unlawful targeting decision are separate tasks.
Legal protection and its limits
Under international humanitarian law, civilian objects are protected from direct attack unless they qualify as military objectives. This requires an effective contribution to military action and a definite military advantage from their destruction, capture or neutralisation in the circumstances at the time. Even then, indiscriminate attacks and attacks expected to cause excessive incidental civilian harm relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated are prohibited. Feasible precautions to avoid or minimise civilian harm are also required.
Hospitals have additional protection. The ICRC explains that this can cease only when a facility is used, outside its humanitarian function, for acts harmful to the enemy and a warning has gone unheeded, with a reasonable time limit where appropriate. Loss of that protection does not itself permit an attack: the facility must also qualify as a military objective, and proportionality and precautions continue to apply. The assessment concerns the circumstances of a specific operation.
For utility networks, anticipated harm includes more than damage at the point of impact. The ICRC identifies foreseeable reverberating effects as relevant to assessing civilian harm. This connects targeting decisions to what happens when an interruption reaches people who depend on the affected network.
When several services fail together
The urban-services report explains that power, water, sanitation and healthcare depend on one another. Electricity interruptions can stop water pumping and treatment; water shortages can undermine hospital operations and hygiene. Damage to one component therefore changes the operating conditions of other services, including facilities beyond the immediate area of fighting.
For a household, simultaneous disruption reduces the available alternatives. A functioning clinic offers less protection when reaching it is unsafe or its supporting services are interrupted. A repaired water pipe cannot restore supply if the pumping system remains disabled. These examples show why counting repaired structures and measuring restored services answer different questions.
Education has its own continuity problem. Recording attacks against schools establishes one part of the harm; it does not measure every lost lesson or every child unable to attend. When health services and schooling are disrupted together, the interruption concerns both immediate care and the institutions through which communities maintain daily life.
Monitoring does not automatically establish accountability
The World Health Organization (WHO) uses its Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care to collect and verify information about incidents in emergency settings. Its definition extends beyond bombardment to threats, violence and obstruction that interfere with healthcare. Published data include affected resources and personnel, incident dates and certainty levels.
The WHO explicitly states that it does not collect or verify information about perpetrators. Its records therefore document disruption and harm without independently establishing who bears responsibility. Confidentiality measures also limit what underlying information is publicly shared. Treating its incident count as a list of judicially established war crimes would exceed the system’s stated purpose.
The United Nations Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, established in 2005, gathers information on six grave violations against children, including attacks on schools and hospitals. Its findings feed reporting by the Secretary-General. UNICEF explains that the mechanism also identifies perpetrators and informs protective responses and engagement with parties to conflict. Monitoring can support accountability, but publication alone does not restore a service or determine criminal liability. Different mechanisms have different mandates, so their totals are not interchangeable.
Recovery beyond replacing buildings
The assessment published by the World Bank distinguishes Ukraine’s estimated recovery needs from more than US$195 billion in assessed direct damage. It reports an approximately 21 per cent increase in damaged or destroyed energy assets compared with the previous assessment. The recovery estimate is a planning measure, rather than a confirmed bill or secured funding.
The gap between physical damage and recovery needs reflects the broader task described in the assessment: restoring systems that support economic activity and social well-being. Reconstruction also takes place while destruction continues. A completed repair and a durable return to service are therefore different milestones, particularly when the repaired network remains exposed to renewed attack.
The practical connection to post-conflict recovery is visible in these dependencies. Preserving an operating service retains part of the capacity that reconstruction would otherwise have to recreate. Replacing a building is one step; restoring the network and the people who operate it determines whether that building can fulfil its function. Protection during hostilities and recovery afterwards concern the same systems at different stages of disruption.
Written by a human author, edited with AI assistance.
Further information:
ICRC, International humanitarian law and the challenges of contemporary armed conflicts, chapter IV, explains targeting rules, medical protection and foreseeable harm from infrastructure attacks.
ICRC, Urban services during protracted armed conflict, documents interconnected services, cumulative deterioration and barriers to maintaining urban infrastructure.
WHO, Attacks on health care initiative: Documenting the problem, explains surveillance definitions, verification, confidentiality and the absence of perpetrator attribution.
UNICEF, 25 Years of Children and Armed Conflict, explains the monitoring mechanism, attacks on schools and hospitals, and how verified information supports reporting and protective action.
World Bank, Updated Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction Needs Assessment Released, provides the February 2026 assessment’s damage and recovery estimates and their reference period.
