The Lasting Wounds Of The War In Ukraine

The Lasting Wounds of the War in Ukraine

Both Sides Will Struggle to Reintegrate Millions of Veterans

Dara Massicot

March 18, 2026

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As the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year, it remains unclear when or how the conflict will end. But it will end, as all wars do, and when it does, both Ukraine and Russia will face the challenge of reintegrating thousands of soldiers back into their societies. Some veterans will return home resilient and ready to rejoin their communities; others will need physical, mental, and financial support for the rest of their lives. Both countries will face reintegration challenges requiring significant policy attention and financial resources, and Kyiv and Moscow are aware that there is no alternative to tackling the problem head-on.

Ukrainian and Russian soldiers face many of the same challenges with reintegration, but the social contexts for their return differ drastically. For Ukraine, successful reintegration of veterans is a critical social and security issue vital to the country’s recovery and reconstruction. Kyiv has some advantages in this regard—its civilian population trusts its defenders and wants to help them, even if it does not know how. Kyiv also has the support of international partners. But Ukraine’s veterans will return to communities damaged by Russian attacks and disrupted by internal displacement or emigration to Europe. Russian veterans, by contrast, will return to largely intact communities. Yet they are unly to find the civilian population particularly welcoming, no matter how hard the Kremlin tries to curate images of soldierly heroism. Many Russian soldiers have also faced abuse at the hands of their own commanders, adding to the psychological complexities of their reintegration into Russian society.

Research by international organizations, including the UN, has shown that veterans’ ability to reunite with their former communities and social networks and to find stable employment are among the best predictors of successful reintegration—and historical trends show that veterans who struggle to reintegrate or receive adequate support are at a higher risk of financial trouble, domestic conflict, unemployment, isolation, and substance abuse. How Kyiv and Moscow help their fighters manage the transition from soldier to veteran will affect social cohesion, political stability, and recovery in each country for decades to come. And although soldiers are still actively fighting on the frontlines, the task of preparing for their return is urgent and will take time. Both Ukraine and Russia realize they must put in place effective veteran support measures now, before their soldiers are demobilized, or risk overwhelming their medical and social systems and undermining their entire postwar reconstruction efforts.

HOME HEALTH

For Ukraine, one of the top challenges of veteran reintegration is the enormous scale of the problem. Estimates suggest that Ukraine’s veteran population could reach as high as two million people when the war ends, and that does not include civilian first responders, who will also require support. Ukrainian officials have indicated that they do not intend to publish official statistics on how many soldiers have sustained physical injuries or invisible wounds posttraumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury until the war is over, but experts from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health estimate that 15 to 20 percent of veterans may require clinical support for mental health challenges. Ukraine’s medical system comprises a combination of state-run facilities, private nongovernmental organizations run by both Ukraine and international partners, and international volunteers and donors. This system is already under strain trying to care for the existing wounded, and demobilization would add hundreds of thousands more veterans to the population requiring care. 

Therapists who specialize in helping veterans process wartime trauma are also in short supply. When the war ends, the complex physical and mental rehabilitation needs of veterans is ly to overwhelm this network, which was not designed to support such demands. In addition to capacity shortfalls, Ukraine’s health sector lacks the durable financial support it needs to sustain postwar veteran care. Amputees, for example, must be refit with prosthetics repeatedly over their lifetimes. Many of Ukraine’s roughly 70 prosthetics centers aren’t equipped to handle these longer-term rehabilitation requirements because they are privately run or funded by donations. Prosthetics are too critical and too expensive to rely on volunteer donations or short-term grants. If this support dries up, veterans’ quality of life will suffer.

Many soldiers will return to their homes to find them changed: families have been internally displaced or emigrated to Europe, Russian missiles have damaged infrastructure, or towns have been occupied. Because Ukrainian cities were not designed for accessibility, disabled veterans will find it difficult to move between home, work, medical appointments, and social spaces. Without modifications to Ukraine’s physical environment—more ramps, wider elevators, or modified apartments, for example—these severely wounded veterans are at risk of profound isolation that could impede their mental and physical recovery. The successful reintegration of Ukrainian veterans is also critical for the future defense of the country; showing that veterans will be cared for after they return from battle helps future recruiting.

Although Ukrainian civilians possess a growing understanding of wounded veterans’ complex rehabilitation needs, the idea of veteran resilience—that veterans return stronger and more focused from their wartime experiences—is less well understood. Many veterans will come home hoping to start businesses, put new skills to use, or expand their education—in other words, transition to as normal a postwar life as possible. Yet there is a disconnect between what Ukrainian soldiers say they need and what Ukrainian civilians think they need. When polled, Ukrainian veterans and soldiers are quite practical about their postwar needs, often reporting their top concerns to be finding stable and well-paying employment, securing housing, and, if they are disabled, receiving sufficient financial support for themselves and their families. Having their most urgent material needs met is the foundation on which they can address other concerns, such as their mental health. In contrast, polled civilians believe that mental health support should be a top priority for veterans, rating material needs as important but lower priority. This disconnect over postwar support can lead to misunderstandings between those civilians who believe returning soldiers need pity or handouts and veterans who prefer respect and opportunities for self-sufficiency. veterans and civilians that. Tailored veteran support policies that emphasize resilience and independence, and public messaging that conveys the true priorities of veterans, are key ways the Ukrainian government can remedy this issue.

PROBLEM ARMY

Russia faces its own set of challenges. The Russian bureaucratic and medical systems are, Ukraine’s, already under strain and lack the capacity to absorb large numbers of returning soldiers. At any given time, Russia has around 700,000 personnel involved in the war, and between 137,000 and 300,000 veterans have already been discharged. Russia’s overall veteran population is ly to exceed one million when the war ends. Also Ukraine, Russia faces a shortage of rehabilitation centers and mental health specialists; its existing centers and experts are already unable to adequately serve its civilian population, let alone a ballooning number of veterans. Although Russia is constructing several dozen new regional veteran health and reintegration centers, the current system of Soviet-era military sanatoriums, hospitals, and civilian clinics is insufficient, even with emergency and rehabilitative care from Belarus and prosthetics aid from China.

Unin Ukraine, Russian soldiers have intact communities to return to. But they will rejoin a civilian population that has grown largely ambivalent and wary of them due to historical stereotypes and crimes already committed by returning soldiers since 2022. According to Russian veteran advocacy groups, nearly 35 percent of Soviet veterans from the 1979–89 war in Afghanistan showed PTSD symptoms, with possibly even higher rates from the wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s. Due to reintegration failures, poverty, and social collapse in the 1990s, some veterans joined organized crime groups, and by the first decade of the twenty-first century, 100,000 veterans were in prison.

Memories of how troubled these veterans—who were called “Afghantsy” or “Chechentsy”—became still shape the Russian public’s perceptions and stereotypes. The population is bracing for the return of the soldiers in Ukraine, ly to be called “Ukraintsy.” A Levada Center survey in September 2025 found that 40 percent of Russians agreed that after their soldiers return from the war, there will be an increase in crime and social conflict. And according to a Novaya Gazeta investigation, since 2022, roughly 8,000 Russian veterans have already been convicted of crimes, including some violent ones. In this social environment, even motivated and law-abiding Russian veterans are ly to encounter public stigma, apathy, and wariness.

Russia’s shortsighted effort to recruit soldiers from prisons will worsen long-term social stability if reintegration is mismanaged. To avoid a second mobilization drive, the Kremlin has in practice dropped all standards for recruiting personnel. The Russian frontlines in Ukraine are now staffed with a growing number of convicts (estimates suggest that between 120,000 and 180,000 have joined the military since 2023), soldiers with prewar criminal records, or men with drug and alcohol abuse issues. Some return to Russia and commit new violent crimes or rejoin organized crime groups such as the Russian Mafia. As Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service put it in their annual threat assessment report, “Russia’s frontline units are largely composed of individuals who, under normal circumstances, should not be entrusted with weapons.”

HIDING HEROES

Both Kyiv and Moscow are aware of their looming veteran challenges. But unUkrainian veterans, Russian veterans carry the weight of years of maltreatment and abuse from their commanders. They also face pressure, including threats of legal consequences, never to discuss what happened within their units during wartime. Moscow therefore has the added challenge of mitigating the social repercussions of a troubled veteran population and suppressing broader awareness of frontline abuses. Because of social instability concerns, the Kremlin is taking a more proactive stance on veteran reintegration than it did during previous wars, and Russian leaders and nongovernmental organizations are speaking openly about some of the challenges their soldiers are ly to face upon returning home. Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Anna Tsivileva, a member of his extended family, as a deputy defense minister in charge of veterans’ affairs, a signal that this issue is important to him personally. Tsivileva, originally trained as a psychiatrist, estimates that 20 percent of Russian veterans will need clinical support for PTSD, and she has also suggested that her preference is to screen all veterans upon demobilization or discharge.

To start to resolve its systemic shortcomings, Russia has expanded medical care and mental health support to provide for the smooth delivery of veterans’ benefits, albeit with mixed results. It has also offered employment support to return veterans to the job market or political system as soon as possible. Kyiv, Moscow understands that receiving state benefits and finding stable employment are key to successful veteran reintegration. It has established quota-based placement at universities for veterans or their children and some job training, housing, or free vehicles to disabled veterans. Russia has created regional Defenders of the Fatherland offices to help veterans navigate benefits, offer job assistance, or make referrals to medical specialists or other counseling. A second government program, Time of Heroes, is designed to retrain selected veterans for public service roles as a way of encouraging loyalty to and dependence on the state. These programs portray Russian veterans as part of a so-called “new elite”—although these programs are only assisting small numbers of veterans for now and could easily be overwhelmed by a rapid influx of demobilized soldiers. In 2025, the Russian government also launched a federal grant program to train veterans to run a business and fund veteran-run small businesses.

Although these programs will help with reintegration, they do not address the root causes of brutality within Russian units that leads to disgruntlement among soldiers and inhibits their postwar psychological recovery. And the modification of laws to criminalize critiques of the Russian military and the suppression of online discussions of operational failures, military discipline issues, and potential war crimes will only further complicate veteran reintegration. The Russian civilian population cannot and does not demand answers about how the war is being fought, even as the cemeteries fill up with the fallen. This apathy serves the Kremlin in wartime. But the kind of compassion and understanding that veterans need cannot be cultivated if it remains illegal to discuss their real experiences. The Kremlin’s “new elite” messaging is also unly to overcome Russian civilians’ prejudices or their experiences with returnees that include former violent convicts, men with substance abuse problems or psychological instability, or veterans that quietly resent their fellow soldiers or their government.

For some veterans, the war will not end on the battlefield.

Moscow may attempt to avert social tension using its existing classification of veterans into various categories of political risk. Psychologists have already been embedded on the frontlines to maintain discipline within units; given that they also have basic diagnostic skills to assign psychological readiness scores to combatants, their feedback could be used to identify problematic personnel. Russia might permanently station some soldiers it judges to be particularly at risk in occupied Ukraine, even relocating their families as an incentive to remain outside of Russia. A version of this policy was introduced for discussion in the Russian Duma this March. Fast-tracking “problem” veterans’ acceptance into Russian mercenary groups in Africa or the Middle East is another option, although there is a limit to how many could be absorbed. For those soldiers that do return to Russia and cause problems, reincarceration is ly, mostly because it would allow the Kremlin to solve two problems at once: appearing sensitive to public safety concerns while removing violent or troubled veterans from public view. If it wishes, the Kremlin also has the legal means to calibrate postwar demobilization by discharging soldiers based on the date they renewed their military contracts, rather than all at once. It will ly expand programs such as Time of Heroes to elevate some veterans into high-profile jobs and sustain the Kremlin’s narratives about heroism and create or co-opt veterans’ interest groups to control the spread of information and prevent unsanctioned collective bargaining.

Overall, Russia is combining pragmatism and coercion in its approach to veterans—advancing supportive policies along with coercive measures that suppress critical news and isolate problematic veterans and their stories from broader public view. This is a more proactive stance than in previous conflicts, which suggests that the Kremlin recognizes the severity of the social issues its veteran population could cause if mismanaged. In a sense, the Kremlin’s ideal outcome is for the civilian population to continue turning a blind eye to the realities of the conflict, and for veterans to lead an orderly life and keep their problems out of public view after they return. This is wishful thinking. Russia’s state-sponsored rebranding of veterans as heroic and resilient is ly to clash with the lived experience of wary Russian communities, particularly if troubled veterans commit crimes or create other public disturbances. The Kremlin is liable to find that its soldier and civilian populations do not reintegrate well, an outcome that would demand a change in approach.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Kyiv’s reintegration policies are designed based on feedback from its soldiers and veterans. Since the war began, in 2022, the Ukrainian government has adopted three broad categories of reintegration policies: coordinating rehabilitation benefits, assisting with employment, and improving accessibility in public and private spaces. Kyiv is also working to consolidate state benefits to help veterans and their families better navigate a complicated bureaucracy. These benefits now include training for independent living skills for wounded veterans and their families, plastic surgery for severe burns or scars, and expanded long-term medical care coverage. The Ukrainian government has decreed that cities will be updated for disabled veterans, with modifications to existing spaces and new construction specifically designed for wounded veteran access. Stipends have also been promised to veterans that will allow them to remodel their homes or modify their vehicles for accessibility.

Kyiv has also created new programs designed to get veterans back into the labor market quickly. Several state-run programs offer employment supports that include training and certification programs, job placement services, full salary subsidies, and other benefits to employers that hire veterans, as well as federal grants for startup businesses founded by vets. These policies are a step in the right direction and a good proof of concept. But they must be scaled up to support the large number of soldiers who are still in active military service. To achieve this, Ukraine will ly need international financial support—and Kyiv will need to convince its foreign partners to match its own citizens’ sentiments and make aiding veterans a priority in Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Regardless of when the war ends, veteran reintegration will be critical to both sides’ postwar development. For Russia, reintegration is key to avoiding social instability; the Kremlin’s primary objective will be to ensure that troubled veterans don’t exacerbate social rifts in a country already suffering from economic strain. In Ukraine, however, veterans make up a much larger percentage of the population compared to Russia, and thus successful veteran integration is even more important for the country to thrive. This success will be measured, in part, by the number of veterans that stay in Ukraine to help rebuild the country once the fighting stops. Poorly managed reintegration could lead to a large wave of emigration if veterans no longer see their country as a viable place to live and look abroad for economic opportunities. Such emigration would further strain the country’s already shrinking population. Ukrainian and Russian veterans will walk separate roads after the war ends, but for some, the war will not end on the battlefield; it will them home long after the guns fall silent.

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