Ukraine's veteran population could reach as high as two million people when the war ends - not counting civilian first responders who will also require support - and the country's medical and rehabilitation systems are nowhere near ready for a challenge of this scale, a leading defense researcher has warned.
The assessment comes from Dara Massicot, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in an extensive analysis published by Foreign Affairs, "Hvylya" reports.
Ukrainian officials have indicated they will not publish official statistics on soldiers' physical injuries or invisible wounds - such as PTSD 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." Therapists who specialize in helping veterans process wartime trauma are already in short supply, and demobilization would add hundreds of thousands more to the population requiring care.
The financial sustainability of Ukraine's rehabilitation infrastructure is another critical vulnerability. Ukraine has roughly 70 prosthetics centers, but many "aren't equipped to handle longer-term rehabilitation requirements because they are privately run or funded by donations." Amputees must be refit with prosthetics repeatedly over their lifetimes, and Massicot warns that prosthetics are "too critical and too expensive to rely on volunteer donations or short-term grants."
Ukraine's medical system currently comprises a combination of state-run facilities, private NGOs run by both Ukrainian and international partners, and international volunteers and donors. This network "was not designed to support such demands," and when the war ends, the complex rehabilitation needs of veterans are likely to overwhelm it. If donor support dries up, Massicot warns, "veterans' quality of life will suffer."
To scale up its reintegration programs, Ukraine will likely 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 reconstruction.
Read more: Yuriy Romanenko: Ukraine Risking Orwellian "Animal Farm" Scenario Amid War.