Cities at war: donors, hubs and brokers in urban responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed cities as frontline international actors in managing war-related crises. This article examines the responses of Polish metropolitan governments, advancing a three-role analytical framework that conceptualises cities as donors, hubs and brokers, capturing the functional diversity of urban wartime assistance. Drawing on survey data and semi-structured interviews with officials from eleven cities, the article shows how cities mobilise resources, coordinate transnational aid flows and connect actors across governance levels. The findings demonstrate that war transforms city diplomacy into a crisis-driven mode of international agency beyond existing paradigms of decentralised development cooperation and humanitarian action.