Portraits
Helping Ukraine’s war veterans return to everyday life
After three years of war, there are over a million of Ukrainians who have returned home from the war – often injured in body and soul. The VILNO program helps them to re-establish themselves in civilian life. Three veterans talk about their experiences and how they are doing today.
Reintegrating war veterans into civilian life has become a key challenge for Ukraine. The country already counts some 1.4 million discharged servicemen and women, and the fight against Russian aggression is expected to push the number as high as 4-5 million, as the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s humanitarian affairs committee said late 2024.
On returning home, veterans have to cope with the physical and psychological injuries they sustained, while trying to fit back into a society changed by war. With government veterans’ services only able to do so much, civil society support programs like VILNO have stepped up.
Founded by the Ukrainian NGO Insha Osvita and supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, VILNO helps artists, teachers and cultural and educational managers who served in the war find a way back into the work they left behind. The aim is also for the program to serve as a model for reintegrating veterans back into other professions.
We spoke to three veterans about the war, their way back into civilian life, and the importance of the VILNO program: a former actor who is now an accessibility advocate; the co-founder of the VILNO program, who is an artist and a veteran himself; and a female veteran who worked in the creative industry and opened a bookstore after her military service.
“It's not injury that makes us 'disabled', it’s other people.”
“Before the full-scale war, I was an actor and studying directing. All this was extremely interesting, but it was probably these artistic interests that eventually made me join the army: I got to know more about the culture and history of Ukraine and I started to better understand what was really going on. I thought, if I don't defend the country, who will?
I volunteered in April 2022. First, I was sent to one of the units in Chernihiv. Later I was transferred to Azov as a UAV pilot.
In March 2024, I was wounded during a combat mission near the Serebryansky forest. The night before, I had completed some work and gone to bed. Suddenly, there was an explosion, concrete cracking, and I saw a concrete slab collapse on us. Some of my comrades were completely buried, but I was only half buried. My legs were broken in three places. For four hours, the guys worked to get me out of the rubble – digging me out with their own hands. Mortars were fired around me every 20 minutes. It was very painful, I kept screaming. Then we waited two hours to be evacuated. In the end, I had to have both upper limbs amputated above the knee.
Being injured in this way means that I am not very mobile anymore, so it is difficult to talk about returning to acting – after all, it’s an activity that demands the ability to use all parts of the body, to be fully functional. But if I were offered the chance to take part in an interesting project, I might accept.
After my injury, I spent a lot of time in hospitals. When you see people with injuries and artificial limbs and watch their movements every day, you begin to understand better what needs to change. It's not injury that makes us 'disabled', it’s other people, those who don't pay attention to our needs.
My wife and I are currently conceiving a project – a video guide to prosthetics and physical rehabilitation for veterans after injury. When I still had legs, I didn't pay attention to a lot of things. Now that I am a person with a disability, I look at everything from a different angle. When I received my grant from the VILNO program, I decided to focus on this particular issue. I think that a guide like that will prove extremely relevant for Ukraine.
Mykola holds a sign that reads “My hell lasted 4 years. Their hell is still going on.”
I am very interested in exploring Ukraine, I have not been to many parts yet. During my military service, I had a great opportunity to see the Donbass region – I was a pilot, so I saw its beauty from above. It is a shame that these areas are being destroyed. I dream of having a child and of seeing the ocean with my wife. I am happy every day when I see the guys in the rehabilitation center gradually mastering their artificial limby, starting to walk on them and some of them even running. I, for one, will never be able to do that, because I need completely different prosthesis for running.
It's very childish to talk about victory and to hope that it will just happen one day. Believing in it is not enough to make it happen, you have to do something. Victory is won by doing – and that's what we have to do to win.”
“We need to be present for one other. Presence creates trust.”
“I was in the 95th Separate Polesian Airborne Assault Brigade and in July 2023 received a severe shrapnel wound that damaged the functions of my musculoskeletal system. I was evacuated to the city of Dnipro, where the debris that damaged my spine was removed, and then to Kyiv for rehabilitation. In the spring of 2024, I was declared unfit for military service and now have recognized a disability.
The war I saw is what most civilians imagine. Explosions, blood, shooting, screaming, trenches, danger, fear, tracked vehicles, forests, fields, seeing the enemy with your own eyes, opening fire, drones, heat, rain, sleep deprivation, lack of water and food, adrenaline, stupid jokes, artillery and mortar attacks, losing comrades, death, constant smoking, the joy of leaving our positions. Life can end at any moment.
The conclusions I draw from experiencing military service and participating in combat are as follows: first of all, there is a feeling of guilt – for the loss of my comrades and for having I survived. I know that I did my best, but people still died. Sometimes, even when you try your best, things don't turn out the way you want them to.
After the evacuation to Kyiv, I completely banished art from my mind. I was overwhelmed by the joy of having my family around me, by the desire to help my neighbors, by the fullness and sincerity the exchanges with the people I met.
Later I was offered the chance to help create the VILNO program. I hesitated at first, even though I understood the value, necessity and timeliness of the initiative. I was feeling a bit lonely, but I knew that I had to look for people with similar experiences. I was afraid that communicating would be retraumatizing, and that guilt would take on a new dimension that I was not yet ready to face. Nevertheless, I agreed – I knew it was the right thing to do, even though it was scary.
The feeling of belonging to a community is very important. I think presence is a very underrated quality. We need to be present for one other. Presence creates trust, supports hope and promotes understanding. When I know that you are there, that you are experiencing with me what is happening here and now, when we see the same thing with our eyes and hear it with our ears, then we are us.”
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Insights: Supporting Ukraine
VILNO’s support “honors the importance of my military service.”
“In the spring of 2022, it seemed that the only thing to do was to help the army in any way possible. Like most other Ukrainians at the time, I did a lot of voluntary work. But it didn't seem like doing anywhere near enough, so in April 2022, I decided to join the armed forces. I served for a year and seven months.
Military service gave me the feeling of participating, provided discipline and made me see that I can handle situations that I never thought I could. When you are in the military, you have no choice: you do what you are told. Once you return to civilian life, you start to appreciate your personal life, your free schedule and your personal space – all things that were limited in the army.
In my opinion, there are two types of: those who like to talk about their time in the army and those who do not. I am the type reluctant to talk about my military service.
After their time in the army, some soldiers look for something in civilian life similar to what they did in the army. I did not want to drag my military service into my civilian life. Together with a psychotherapist, I rediscovered my old dream of opening a bookstore and worked to make it into an actual project. It was not easy. But thanks to my experience of military service, I again realized that nothing is impossible – you just need a good plan.
During a power outage, flashlight light in the bookstore must be sufficient.
About six months after the opening, a friend of mine, also a veteran, told me about Insha Osvita’s VILNO program. At first, I didn't want to apply: I thought I would have to go through all the circles of hell to gather the necessary documents. That idea was traumatic, but turned out that I just had to fill out a questionnaire. So I agreed.
Later, we had a Zoom call together with other people who had also received a grant [from VILNO]. I thought that the stipend was exlusively for my project and tried to assure the organizers this would be the case. They said that I could spend the money on my priorities. This is a very cool story – it honors the importance of my military service and shows that what I did has been noticed. You don't always see that in the civilian world.”
We have been supporting Ukraine since spring 2022. After initial emergency aid programs, we are now focusing on the sustainable impact of funded projects. Find out here which programs we support in Ukraine and neighboring European countries.