{"id":73406,"date":"2024-06-15T01:49:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T01:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/15\/war-is-tough-ukrainian-soldiers-reveal-mental-toll-of-fighting-on-the-frontline\/"},"modified":"2024-06-15T01:49:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T01:49:07","slug":"war-is-tough-ukrainian-soldiers-reveal-mental-toll-of-fighting-on-the-frontline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/15\/war-is-tough-ukrainian-soldiers-reveal-mental-toll-of-fighting-on-the-frontline\/","title":{"rendered":"‘War is tough’ – Ukrainian soldiers reveal mental toll of fighting on the frontline"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"‘War<\/div>


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His voice quiet and at times wobbly, a Ukrainian soldier called Maksym candidly shares his mental trauma from fighting on the frontline.<\/p>\n

“Everything the Russians have done – trying to destroy us, killing our fellow soldiers – it deeply affects my emotional state,” he said. “War is tough.”<\/p>\n

The soldier agreed to speak to Sky News as he received support at a makeshift psychological centre in eastern Ukraine<\/a><\/strong>, set up by fellow troops from 41st Brigade.<\/p>\n

Russia-Ukraine latest: Putin’s ceasefire offer labelled a ‘sham’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The facility can hold around 10 service personnel at a time, each able to stay for a few days.<\/p>\n

As well as being offered a bed, food and space to relax, each visitor is also assessed by military psychologists and encouraged to speak about what is going on in their mind.<\/p>\n

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Maksym said as soon as he left a two-week rotation in the frontline town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donbas, he knew something was wrong.<\/p>\n

“There were a lot of thoughts swirling in my head about what had happened, and I couldn’t shake them off,” he said, clasping his hands and at times staring into space.<\/p>\n

“It was all weighing heavily on me, so I turned to a psychologist to provide me with some assistance.”<\/p>\n

Like the majority of Ukrainians fighting Russia’s full-scale war, Maksym had previously been a civilian. He worked as an electrical engineer but signed up to fight in April 2022.<\/p>\n

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Apologising as his voice broke with emotion, he said that the war had changed him.<\/p>\n

He described the pain of being unable to see his family easily when deployed on operations – and the agony of not knowing at times whether he would survive to be with them again.<\/p>\n

Maksym said the support hub offered some respite.<\/p>\n

“This place is very helpful because you try to get rid of everything you’ve been through, to recover, to gather your thoughts\u2026 because a soldier who is broken inside\u2026”<\/p>\n

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He suddenly paused and said sorry once more for his voice faltering.<\/p>\n

Maksym then continued: “He cannot perform these tasks properly and can cause harm.”<\/p>\n

It is a warning that rings true for every conflict, where mental health conditions – such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – caused by exposure to violence, danger and loss can be devastating if left untreated.<\/p>\n

There are no publicly available figures on the number of Ukrainian military personnel and veterans who have PTSD, according to a report by the Kyiv Independent new outlet.<\/p>\n

However, it cited health ministry figures that showed a sharp rise last year in diagnoses of the condition to 12,494 cases, compared with 3,167 in 2021, though it was unclear whether servicemen and women were included in the data.<\/p>\n

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Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n


\n \"Volodymyr
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Zelenskyy compares Putin to Hitler<\/span>
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Ilya, a lieutenant, is a military psychologist who works at the support centre, which was set up inside what had been an abandoned building.<\/p>\n

The place is quite basic with a line of camp beds, separated by makeshift dividers, and a small canteen. Staff said they would love additional equipment such as board games, a snooker table and a better television set.<\/p>\n

Still, the facility is a relatively new idea to be able to treat Ukrainian soldiers’ hidden mental wounds close to the frontline.<\/p>\n

There have long been stabilisation hubs to deal with physical injuries.<\/p>\n

“The main goal is to rehabilitate servicemen so that they remain healthy, both physically and mentally, emotionally, and with their thoughts in order,” Ilya said.<\/p>\n

Read more:
Where will Putin’s escalation end?<\/a>
US reporter to stand trial in Russia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

He was previously a combat soldier, so understands the trauma of war from personal experience – a background that means his patients feel more comfortable to open up about their own experiences.<\/p>\n

He said it is vital to pay attention to a person’s mental scars.<\/p>\n

“I tell the guys: You can stay silent, but it [the trauma] will stay inside you, and the more you accumulate, the worse it becomes\u2026 None of us is made of steel.”<\/p>\n

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\n Ilya, a lieutenant, is a military psychologist
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As for the danger of leaving mental injuries untreated, he said: “We may lose a serviceman. He will start having problems, and besides harming himself, he may harm other people.”<\/p>\n

But with Ukraine suffering troop shortages, only those at the centre who display the most serious signs of mental trauma are sent on for further treatment.<\/p>\n

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The rest must return to the frontline.<\/p>\n

Maksym said he believes he will soon be asked to fight once again “because it’s war”.<\/p>\n

He added: “This is our land\u2026 If we retreat, we will lose Ukraine. Next will be Poland, then other countries. The aggression won’t stop. We need to stop it where we can.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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His voice quiet and at times wobbly, a Ukrainian soldier called Maksym candidly shares his mental trauma from fighting on the frontline. “Everything the Russians have done – trying to destroy us, killing our fellow soldiers – it deeply affects my emotional state,” he said. “War is tough.” The soldier agreed to speak to Sky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/06\/768x432\/skynews-ukraine-war_6582083.png?20240615004823","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,12387,3107,4405,16547,11469,4244,9292,3102],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73406"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73408,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73406\/revisions\/73408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}