Numerous armed conflicts with refugee problems were described in medical literature presenting more than 1800 publications in PubMed since 1945. The health and general well-being problems of refugees are well-documented but most articles either concentrated on a specific group (children, adolescents, women, disabled) [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] or assessed only mental health (post-traumatic stress disorder, for example) [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Numerous studies involved refugees who already spent months or years in safety at refugee camps or being resettled in other countries [1,4,8,[13], [14], [15], [16]]. At the same time, it was noted that currently displaced, recently resettled, and long-term residents report different conditions at least in mental health [17].

Currently displaced persons were relatively rarely studied during actual military activities. Such attempts were made during the 1982 and 2006 wars in Lebanon but only mental health and the psychological response to war were assessed and only internally displaced persons (IDPs) were studied [18,19]. Syrian and Iraqi refugees were checked for posttraumatic stress disorder within the first month following their arrival in the USA [20]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were able to establish an effective system to assess the health status of displaced persons during the 1993–94 civil war in Burundi but this surveillance system was sick people-oriented and did not check the physical needs that may affect the somatic status of healthy refugees [21].

The study assessed the physical needs of the Ukrainian refugees and IDPs during the ongoing Ukrainian armed conflict of 2022 that began on February 24, 2022. We aimed to investigate the immediate physical needs of the refugees that may affect their somatic condition during the armed conflict when they did not yet reach their final destination or just reached a safety zone. We also aimed to analyze what strategy might be better for refugees during an armed conflict to secure their physical needs and maintain their physical conditions.