Russia sends soldiers to war but ignores mental trauma they bring home

While the Kremlin’s use of euphemisms is commonly viewed as part of a propaganda campaign, the lack of a formal war declaration can have legal and financial implications for Russian soldiers who, as a result, may not technically qualify as being eligible for veterans’ benefits.

Soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya were eventually granted veteran status and modest benefits similar to those who served in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, but they hardly basked in glory.

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A conflict in a foreign land, Afghanistan, that was at first hidden from the population and the “counterterrorism” operations to suppress Chechen guerrillas in a rebellious territory seemed alien compared to the Red Army’s defense of mainland Russia against Nazi Germany that became a pillar of Soviet identity.

Instead, “Afghantsi,” as the Afghan veterans are commonly referred to in Russia, were quickly forgotten by the state and did not find sympathy in the general public. The chaos that ensued from the fall of the Soviet Union only exacerbated the situation of widespread and untreated post-traumatic stress and an overall sense of purposelessness experienced by thousands of ex-soldiers.

“Returning from Afghanistan, they could not find a use for themselves, without a profession and education, many of them are forced to drag out a miserable existence, especially those who were injured and became disabled,” concluded a 1993 sociological paper, published by the Russian Academy of Public Administration four years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. “They no longer had the strength to earn money, and their pensions are barely enough not to starve to death,” the report said.

And if surgeries and prosthetics for missing limbs were eventually obtainable, there was little to no psychological help available to address the trauma veterans suffered.

Even now, there are no centralized Russian rehabilitation programs for veterans of military conflicts and those returning from Ukraine risk being left to their own devices as private organizations struggle to cope with the rise of people needing help, according to a Russian grass-roots support group called War Veterans.

“There are no rehabilitation programs themselves, because no one tests veterans for [psychological] trauma, and its effect on the physical state of the body,” the group said. “There is no individual approach to assessing the condition of combatants and often a common single and ineffective template is applied en masse.”

According to War Veterans, the Russian government provides grants to veterans’ unions and individual groups set up by former soldiers, effectively outsourcing counseling and rehabilitation. The existing network of government-run military sanitariums, a Soviet-era relic where wounded ex-soldiers could spend several weeks for recovery, has also proven to be ineffective. There are few such facilities and even fewer with specialized programs for veterans.

Some Afghantsi, and later Chechnya veterans, formed the core of organized crime groups that defined much of the 1990s in Russia. Amputees in military uniforms begging for money on the streets or veterans busking on town squares singing wartime songs were a frequent scene in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s. Alcoholism and drug use spiked among former combatants, often hand in hand with domestic abuse.

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Zinky Boys, Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of firsthand accounts from the war in Afghanistan, which is probably one of the fullest depictions of the disarray experienced by soldiers and their families, opens with a monologue by a mother whose son killed a neighbor with a kitchen ax and put it back into her cupboard as if nothing unusual had happened.

The book paints a picture of forgotten soldiers, left to fight their demons and the chaotic Russian bureaucracy on their own.

“When Afghantsi came to the authorities to solve some problems, they were always told: ‘I didn’t send you to Afghanistan,’ ” retired Col. Leonid Khabarov recalled in a 2019 Current Time TV special commemorating 30 years since the Soviet withdrawal, referring to years-long legal battles for compensation and health care promised by the state.

According to Alya, her family only realized Vladimir was dealing with a severe case of PTSD later in life, as they had never heard the term and access to psychological help was severely limited.

There were no one-on-one counseling sessions. Vladimir went to several group meetings set up for Afghan veterans, but they only triggered him, and each gathering led to drunken violence. Vladimir was especially harsh on his son.

Alya’s mother for years tried to protect her children from abuse, but constant beatings took a toll on her mental and physical health. She also developed an alcohol addiction, barely left the house in her final years, and died recently from liver failure. Neither Alya nor her elder siblings married or had children, fearing they might carry the abuse and trauma into a new generation.

“We discuss it often with my brother: Should we, with our family experience, ever have kids? Will we be able to raise normal people, or will we turn into our parents?” Alya said.

“People who will be returning soon from Ukraine are not only traumatized but also corrupted by all-permissiveness,” Alya said. “This won’t be just something they keep in the families; it will pour onto the streets.” She added: “There will be thousands of men just like my father, and it won’t be safe either for them and for us.”