The war in Ukraine and its direct and indirect consequences have reverberated throughout the world. The media report on the horrific consequences that are occurring daily, mostly through personal stories that attempt to encapsulate the horrors of this unprovoked war by Russia. Until this issue in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, to my knowledge there have been no peer-reviewed articles with large-scale quantitative data that analyse the health situation for Ukrainian refugees and their potential effects on health systems. When I was the Emergency Coordinator for the Ukraine refugee response for WHO in March and April of this year, I noted that this absence of available health data from EU hosting countries made planning and response extremely difficult for the multitude of actors involved in the Ukrainian refugee crisis.¹ Until now, the data collected and shared on Ukrainian refugees by the EU-refugee hosting governments remain inadequate for an effective response and for future planning.