Alongside the ongoing fighting around Bakhmout, in the Donbass, Russian forces have gone back on the offensive in the Kharkiv region. They even claim the capture of a locality in this region of northeastern Ukraine liberated in September. For the Ukrainian soldiers, the pressure is great. After nearly a year of high intensity combat, bodies and minds are tired. Report in a psychological rehabilitation center for soldiers, which also welcomes the families of the latter.
With our special envoys in eastern Ukraine, Anastasia Becchio And Boris Vicith
Ash and Sveta are sitting close together on a couch. Tomorrow, the 27-year-old young mobilized, anti-aircraft defense gunner in the Zaporijia region, will return to the front. He has just spent a week in the psychological rehabilitation center.
I perked up morally, because I had the opportunity to talk, to take my mind off things. I was a little down, but that’s normal after a year there.
Sveta, who says she has lost 26 kg since the start of the war, has traveled all over Ukraine to spend a few days with her husband. Since serving in the Donbass, Sacha had a lot of mood swings, explains the young mother. After this stay, he is unrecognizable.
He had become aggressive, whereas now he is gentle as a lamb. I would even say he’s a little too calm, I’m not used to that.
The team that set up this rehabilitation center decided to include families in the process. Maksim Baïda is the chief psychologist.
Just as men from the civilian world were not ready for war, wives are not prepared for the transformations that their husbands undergo. War changes people. The soldier who returns home, if he feels in danger, he is aggressive.
Sacha goes back to the front. Sveta will wait for calls from her husband, some 900 km away.
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