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This week, ICRC president Peter Maurer is in Ukraine, his second visit to the country since the conflict broke out almost three years ago. In this diary, he will share some impressions of the people he has met and places he's been.

Follow Peter Maurer on Twitter: @PMaurerICRC

When I last came to Kiev, in February of 2015, I arrived in a very different city. That city was still getting to grips with the new reality of the armed conflict, which had broken out in the east the year before.

The battle for the town of Debaltsevo one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of the conflict since it began had just come to an end, and civilians in the region were left reeling. It was also a time of intense diplomatic activity and negotiation: the second Minsk agreement had just been struck by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.

For the ICRC, too, it was a time of intense pressure, to try to provide basic assistance to the displaced, the elderly, the sick and all the other vulnerable people living in severely straightened circumstances because of the conflict.

Today, we are still very much absorbed with providing basic services only this week, for example, our teams have been bringing in emergency supplies of water to people in Avdiivka after the water supply was cut.

However, two years later, as people here have come to know us better, their expectations have increased as they should. But what is especially striking is the way the ICRC's role as a neutral humanitarian intermediary, laid down in the Geneva Conventions, is now more widely recognized and solicited. This can take many forms. For example, in October, with the water supply to some 600,000 people under threat in the Lugansk region due to a lack of agreement between the sides, we exceptionally stepped in to pay electricity bills for a period of two months in order to resume the water supply to people had been cut off owing to unpaid electricity bills.

This is in addition to the basic services that our team now comprised of some 500 people works every day to provide.

When I last visited, candles were still lit in Kiev's streets and squares. Two years later, the candles are still there, but while the pain that they represent is less visible at first glance, it is no less deeply felt.

Instead, in almost every interaction I have had, what came out is the frustration that people feel, of being faced with an increasingly protracted conflict and no clear way out. On the surface, life in the city resembles something close to normal once again. But in all my discussions with politicians, senior officials and our staff in Ukraine, it became clear just how deep a division the conflict has riven through society. No-one is left untouched.

The rest is here:
Diary ICRC President Peter Maurer in Ukraine - ICRC (press release)