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Here's the link when it's not working properly, but looks ok when I just publish it here "successly": not always esp when I try to do so. Best, J
CConversations with other veterans inspired Kovalevskyi to get a master’s ddegree in psychology. Svet Jacqueline For Wsj
KKovalevskyi tightens his arm sling at the Veteran Development Center in KUkraine.Svet Jacqueline For Wsj
Quick Summary
-- Nearly one-third of Ukrainian civilians meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study.
-- Deirdre MacManus of King’s College London warned that untreated mental-health issues will have long-term ramifications for Ukraine’s economy.
-- Demand for antidepressants in Ukraine increased by nearly three-quarters between 2023 and 2025, according to medical marketplace Liki24.
[This summary was generated with AI and reviewed by an editor. Read more about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism.]
KYIV—When Svitlana Kaminska’s 10-year-old daughter complained about blurry vision and odd shapes swirling in her head, she anxiously churned through possible reasons as she lined up various doctor visits.
The answer, when it finally came, was from a children’s psychiatrist. Her daughter Marharyta suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We tried so hard to shield her from everything, so she would see and hear as little as possible,” said Kaminska, a psychologist, recalling the months they spent in the occupied city of Kherson. “But it turned out that we had not.”
Marharyta, now 14, still dislikes loud noises, especially in the echoey school shelter during air attacks. Noise-canceling headphones help, along with the breathing techniques she learned from her psychologist and a painted bullet casing, a keepsake from her father at the front.
Yet Kaminska still worries about the long-term damage, and whether her daughter will ever escape the psychological impact of the war. “I understood that this will not be fast,” she recalled, anticipating the ups and downs her child faces ahead. “Nothing in our lives just goes away.”
In over four years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, many families have faced similar journeys, from persistent air attacks to experience of fleeing Moscow’s advancing forces and leaving their homes behind.
Kaminska mostly works with veterans, active-duty servicemen and their families.Serhii Korovayny For Wsj
Nearly a third of Ukrainian civilians meet criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a recent study published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology.
At the front line, servicemen face extreme levels of stress and exhaustion as they repel incremental Russian advances under constant shelling with no end in sight. Struggling to achieve their war aims on the battlefield, Russian forces pummel Ukrainian cities and the country’s power grid to break the population’s morale.
While opinion surveys continue to show Ukrainians’ unwillingness to give in to Russian demands ahead of a difficult winter, attacks and losses take their toll. Ukraine’s ability to help its suffering population could prove crucial to its ability to resist and recover after the war ends.
“If mental-health difficulties go untreated at a population level, that will have significant long-term ramifications for the economy and for productivity,” said Deirdre MacManus, a consultant psychiatrist and associate professor at King’s College London. “It impacts people’s ability to parent.”
As a co-author of the study on PTSD among Ukrainian civilians, she says community support programs will become key to tackling an issue of this size while thinly stretched specialists can provide targeted help to those who need it most.
Kaminska, the psychologist, says it is difficult to gauge the influence of the war at the population level due to the unprecedented scale and length of their exposure to conflict; Russia’s full-scale invasion has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.
She now mostly works with veterans, active-duty servicemen and their families back home. In four years, she noticed that the uncertainty and patriotic fervor gave way to exhaustion on both ends of the phone. When the defenders return, lives lived in parallel collide.
The families have developed new routines, servicemen have changed and what used to be home turf becomes foreign. When Kaminska’s husband, who joined up in 2023, is back for brief vacations, the differences surface. As she lifted heavy groceries before her husband could help, he asked why she didn’t let him lend a hand. “Because you’re leaving tomorrow,” she said.
Kaminska recalled how he would return home more absent-minded, but with an acute need to get stuff off his chest and spend time with his daughter who became a teenager while he was away. At the front, she said, he notices outbursts and mental fraying from his fellow servicemen, but few confide their feelings because any sign of weakness could shake trust when lives are on the line.
Veteran Oleksii Kovalevskyi, 38, had no time for psychological deep-dives while at the front.
Oleksii Kovalevskyi struggled to trust the psychologists assigned to help him.Svet Jacqueline For Wsj
“There is horror, terror, and there is that stench of earth mixed with blood, which never wears off. That smell lingers constantly,” said Kovalevskyi. “That’s why there’s no opportunity there to think about psychology or skills or any of that.”
He returned from the front in late 2022 after a mortar shell pierced his neck and left him temporarily paralyzed. During the long rehabilitation process, he said the psychological component mattered the most but he struggled to trust the psychologists assigned to help him.
“When you’re paralyzed, you have only one thought—suicide. You have nothing else,” he recalled. One psychologist asked him about the number of people he killed; another ran out in tears. Physical rehabilitation, the doctors’ persistence and the care of his family, including his daughter, gave him the strength to start walking again.
Conversations with other veterans inspired him to get a master’s degree in psychology and start counseling his peers, building on the foundation of shared experience. After returning from the front, many soldiers feel alienated as they face the daunting prospect of rebuilding their relationships and careers in the civilian world. Some turn to drugs and alcohol as a quick way to numb the pain and ward off the nightmares.
“You can only fall asleep when you’ve gotten high on something. You can’t close your eyes when you’re sober,” said Pavlo Mikhovych, 39, a serviceman who spent over two years in Russian captivity before coming back in 2024, and observed this among fellow returnees. Soon after he came back, he was in a car accident that nearly killed his passenger and left him facing a criminal case.
“They released me into society completely unprepared. I didn’t understand my body properly and ended up in an accident,” he said. He is now undergoing treatment in a psychiatric hospital for PTSD before returning to the front, where he chose to serve instead of being prosecuted.
CConversations with other veterans inspired Kovalevskyi to get a master’s ddegree in psychology. Svet Jacqueline For Wsj
KKovalevskyi tightens his arm sling at the Veteran Development Center in KUkraine.Svet Jacqueline For Wsj
His partner has become a lifeline. And for now, antidepressants help him feel less anxious and sleep better. Many others use them, too.
Between 2023 and 2025, the demand for antidepressants went up by nearly three-quarters, according to Ukrainian medical marketplace Liki24. Families in Kyiv turn to medicine to get some respite from the stress mounting each year.
“Antidepressants for me, antidepressants for the dog—antidepressants for everyone,” said Tetiana Postavna, a Kyiv resident, smiling as she explained how she is faring amid the constant air-alerts. “We’ve actually been on antidepressants for three years now, and there’s no way to get off them yet.”
Kaminska, the psychologist, finds comfort in meaningful work and acceptance of uncertainty plaguing the country.
“I’m alive today. I don’t know if I’ll have another day tomorrow because I don’t launch rockets or drones. But I do have today,” Kaminska said.
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Appeared in the November 3, 2026, print edition as 'Ukrainians Fight to Hold Lives Together'.
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Anastasiia Malenko
Anastasiia Malenko is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal covering the war in Ukraine, focusing on how it has reshaped Ukrainian society. She is based in Kyiv. She previously covered the war as a breaking news correspondent for Reuters and a reporter for the Kyiv Independent, the leading English-language newspaper in Ukraine. Anastasiia graduated from Stanford University with degrees in political science and economics.
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