One of the worst things about modern warfare is that it continues to kill soldiers even after they return home.
Over 1,000 Ukrainian veterans of Russia’s war in Donbas have committed suicide since the beginning of the war in 2014, a representative of the parliament’s committee on veterans said on April 24. That’s a terrifying figure, made worse by the fact that the suicide rate among demobilized soldiers has doubled since 2017. And that is just the recorded cases.
Many of those veterans were under 30, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and had no jobs. Many shot themselves under the influence of alcohol. In addition to suicides, violent crimes committed by veterans are frequently reported from all around the country.
No one helped them overcome the haunting shock of war, and regain a place in civilian life. Despite the fact that Ukraine now has a huge veteran community numbering as many as 329,500 former Donbas fighters, the government’s support for its retired defenders remains weak.
Ukraine still does not have a universal, effective, fully funded, and obligatory social adaptation program for combat veterans like those in Western countries. There is no monitoring of post-traumatic stress issues among active service personnel, or assessments made of their readiness to return to civilian life after demobilization.
The consequences of that are dire.
The Ministry of Social Policy does run a program for returning veterans, but the ministry itself admits that it reaches only 4 percent of veterans. Moreover, the program usually only provides soldiers with Soviet-style health resort vouchers, and makes them leap bureaucratic hurdles to get them.
The state’s responsibilities are often taken on by civilian charities and businesses like Pobratymy (Brothers in Arms), where former soldiers help combatants recover from the shock of war, or the Veterano Group, which employs former soldiers or trains them to set up their own new businesses.
This situation must change. The government can’t exploit the nation’s wartime patriotism forever.
Along with the loudly declared goal of bringing the armed forces up to NATO standards by 2020, the country’s leadership must do much more to ensure proper help is provided to soldiers who return from war with deep, yet invisible wounds.
