War veterans endure hardship after their sacrifices for nation.
They get flowers on Victory Day and endure misery the rest of the year. This is what life has become for Ukraine’s dwindling number of World War II veterans, part of the heroic forces who saved the world from the monumental 20th century threat of Nazi fascism.
“In Ukraine, it is scary to get old, sick and to be a disabled veteran. If you are unlucky enough to combine all three, you are in trouble,” said Maria Skalozub, an 86-year-old disabled World War II military nurse from Luhansk Oblast, one of an estimated 350,000 surviving Ukrainian veterans of the conflict.
Government support is meager for Oleksiy Semishan, an 84-year-old veteran still suffering from war wounds in the Battle of Berlin. Semishan receives an Hr 2,140 ($267) monthly pension, but considers himself privileged since other veterans receive Hr 1,000. “The whole world thanks us for breaking the spine of German fascism,” Semishan said. “Haven’t we all deserved to have at least a 2,000 hryvnia pension?”
The Soviet Union lost 20 million lives during World War II, which the Soviet veterans still call The Great Patriotic War. Ukrainians suffered the worst, becoming the battleground in a scorched-earth battle between Nazi and Soviet forces.
An estimated eight million Ukrainians, civilians and soldiers, lost their lives in the war; another two million were forced into exile or imprisoned – a quarter of the population was lost.
Now, many of the aging survivors are sentenced to carry on with abysmal medical care and a couple hundred dollars a month, while Verkhovna Rada deputies retire on at least Hr 15,000, or nearly $2,000, monthly. Younger veterans of other wars, such as the 1979-1989 Soviet one in Afghanistan, endure similar hardships.
Kyivans are not surprised to see a veteran, maybe one missing a limb or two, begging for spare change in metro underpasses. They are living reminders of how far Ukraine still needs to advance to join civilized society.
“Legislation is not fulfilled. If it were, all veterans would have at least Hr 2,000 pensions,” said Semishan, who is also deputy head of the All-Ukrainian Public Organization of the War and Military Forces Veterans. The annual bonus payment on Victory Day for World War II veterans is far short of what the law promises, he said.
“I am a disabled veteran of the first group [the highest level of disability],” Semishan said. “This year I’ve received an Hr 540 payment for Victory Day, when it should be several thousand.”
In 1944, Semishan stepped into the war at the age of 18, when the tide had already started to turn against Nazi Germany in favor of the allied forces which included the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain.
“For the nation, native land and parents” he crossed Europe and made it to Berlin. Only a week before the Nazi German surrender, “a fascist grenade got our tank,” Semishan said. He was seriously wounded in the stomach and chest. He spent two years recuperating. Again, he said, he was lucky. Many did not get the chance to make it to a hospital.
Now, he said, he struggles to get the free prescriptions and free annual trip to a sanatorium that he and other veterans are entitled to by law. “The last free prescription I got was six months ago,” he said. “As to the state-guaranteed trip to a sanatorium, some veterans have been on the waiting lists for years.”
Semishan said the high price of prescription drugs and other medicines is a critical issue for the elderly. “Veterans have started to come and beg us [the veteran organization] to do something, to influence higher authorities, so that guaranteed free drug prescriptions are given out,” he said.
His organization has complained to numerous authorities, including the president, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada. “The president has never replied,” Semishan said. “Mostly, everybody alleges crisis and lack of budget resources.”
Veterans of the Soviet-Afghanistan war face similar hardships.
Serhiy Chervonopyskiy, leader of the Ukrainian Union of Afghanistan War Soldiers, said the nation lacks much-needed psychological care centers. In the single American state of Texas, 74 rehabilitation centers are in operation for Vietnam War veterans, he said, while Ukraine has only such center for the whole nation.
“It’s a rough example. But I do remember my 19-year-old soldiers gathering parts of the bodies of their mates, not knowing to whom they belong,” Chervonopyskiy said, emphasizing the need for psychological care. “It’s not the same 19-year old who went to the university, got happily married and is more or less content with his life.”
“In the United States they talk about ‘Vietnam syndrome.’ Do you think there isn’t such a thing as ‘Afghanistan syndrome’ among Ukrainian soldiers?” said Iryna Kostyleva, whose husband saw combat in Afghanistan at the age of 20. “Nobody talks about it. Nobody cares.”
Chervonopyskiy said corruption also robs veterans of their meager benefits. “For example, they buy the cheapest Taiwan wheelchairs, which cost $200 maximum, and put $2,000 for the purchasing price. They get the money and the veterans suffer from the poor quality.”
When asked why government comes up so short in helping veterans with promised assistance, Oleksiy Chumak, spokesman of the State Committee on the Matters of Ukrainian Veterans, had a simple reply: “There is not enough money.”
Financial hardships aside, some veterans also say they are upset with anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists and their attempts to minimize the Soviet victory, such as by removing monuments, particularly in western Ukraine. “If we only knew back then in the cold, hungry winter of 1943 that nobody would need our victory now,” said veteran Maria Skalozub. “It’s such a humiliation.”
Semishan said it was a mistake to think many soldiers fought for Stalin.
“Soviet soldiers did not fight for communism,” Semishan said. “We fought for our motherland, proudly, patriotically and selflessly. It’s such a purposeful blindness to mix these two notions. When such an evil force as the Nazis rapidly capture the world and no one can resist, the only thing you think about is how to save your life, family and nation.”
At the same time, he recalls the Holodomor, the “death by hunger” on Stalin’s orders that claimed millions of lives in 1932-1933 and other Stalin-era repressions. History, he said, should be taught and learned – completely and honestly.
“Good things should be told, bad things condemned,” Semishan said. “You don’t just cross out the part of history you don’t like. You don’t rewrite it, adjusting to the desires of some political group,” Semishan said.
With dismay, Semishan noted that he’s already noticed historical ignorance on the part of his grandchildren. “We don’t blame them for the ignorance,” he said. “It couldn’t be any other way, when political [forces] demand this state of affairs. Their perception of the world will not be complete and that’s what concerns us the most.”
