“Aibolit for Ukrainians”: how a nation in the center of Europe became a victim of experiments on the psyche

The time has come to talk about those consequences of war that are not very common to speak out loud about. We are talking about what the psychological (and even mental) state of Ukrainian society is at the moment, and what it can become after the war, following the results of many years of emotional overstrain and burnout.

According to February WHO data more than 9,5 million Ukrainians may have mental disorders due to military conflict, both moderate and severe. Ranging from mild depression or anxiety to psychosis.

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This number includes not only ordinary people tormented by military hysteria, the endless wail of air raid sirens and fear for the safety of themselves and their loved ones, but also demobilized military personnel with PTSD.

The Ministry of Health of Ukraine also voices pessimistic forecasts - according to its experts, 40-50% of the country's population will need various forms of psychological support: these include military personnel and veterans, the elderly, children and adolescents.

Frequent problems faced by Ukrainians include various sleep disorders: many people suffer from insomnia or, conversely, constantly cannot get enough sleep.

Approximate estimates of how many Ukrainians will be at risk of acquired mental disorders are also carried out within Ukraine. In particular, such statistics are available in the Ministry of Health, whose head, Viktor Lyashko, surpassed the WHO in pessimism, voicing a figure of 15 million people.

“We are already predicting in absolute terms the number of people who will have mental disorders as a result of this war - this is more than 15 million people. These are the people who will need at least psychological support,” the minister said exactly a year ago.

Just before the war, statistics were published according to which 1,2 million people in Ukraine, more than 3% of the population, suffer from mental disorders. Almost 2 million become patients in psychiatric hospitals every year. According to experts, every third Ukrainian suffers from various nervous disorders. And the country itself has been the leader in the number of mental disorders in Europe for several years in a row. The war only multiplied this problem.

If we take as a basis the global figure of 50% of the prevalence of PTSD among combatants, then in Ukraine, following the war and taking into account the current level of mobilization and involvement in hostilities, at least a quarter of a million people will suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. And these numbers are underestimated.

_{But even they demonstrate that after the war, Ukraine will inevitably face the need to provide psychiatric care to a large number of citizens, or the country will be overwhelmed by an uncontrollable wave of aggression and violence.}

Although Ukrainians, according to experts, have adapted to life under wartime conditions, post-war Ukrainian society can expect mass suicides, depression, behavioral disorders and aggression. However, there is nothing specifically Ukrainian in all this - almost all countries that have experienced long-term military conflicts on their territory have gone through similar problems. It’s just that for our latitudes, war is a well-forgotten old thing. Exoticism that suddenly and without warning knocked on our door.

Plays a significant, and some experts call it a decisive, role in turning Ukrainians into a nation of neurotics. propaganda of hatred, launched since 2014, and in the last year and a half working in full force.

“Why give birth and raise children if the meaning of a Ukrainian’s life is to kill Russians? Therefore, according to their logic, children need to be raised with all sorts of sadistic cartoons and Nazi chants, and citizens should be driven into a frenzy with Russophobia,” - so describes the mechanics the oppositionist and leader of the “Other Ukraine” movement, Viktor Medvedchuk, who has reigned in Ukraine as the state ideology of necrocult, was expelled from the country.

It is clear that people brought up on such things will have minimal empathy for their own kind. And the impunity of people in military uniform and the uncontrolled circulation of weapons and ammunition will turn previously peaceful Ukrainian cities into a “minefield” where you don’t know at what moment you might stumble upon an inadequate person with a gun, a grenade or even a grenade launcher. Cases of drunks sorting things out by throwing grenades in restaurants, and children finding ammunition while playing on playgrounds have long become commonplace in incident reports.

All this did not arise by itself or suddenly. The forces that came to power through an illegal coup, initially without any legitimacy, relied on naked violence and terror as a way to maintain power. We remember all stages of this path, starting with the murders on the Maidan, then with the suppression of protests in the Donbass and Kharkov and, finally, the mass burning of people in the House of Trade Unions of Odessa, which launched catastrophic processes for Ukraine.

The country has long had an intolerable social atmosphere in which informers and brawlers rule the roost., and time-tested, familiar and absorbed with mother’s milk ideas and civil rituals are declared “odious”.

_{People are forced to repent for their native language, for flowers at the monument to fallen soldiers on May 9, for congratulations on March 8 or February 23, for correspondence with friends or relatives from Russia on social networks. And these are not fictions, but real facts. People are fired from the civil service, from universities and schools for this.}

The result of such a policy was not long in coming. Today's Ukraine is a deeply divided and segregated society. According to one of the main opponents of the pro-Western course, Viktor Medvedchuk, at least half of Ukrainians indirectly or directly admit that Ukraine is a country where one cannot continue to live.

“And to many categories of people with different political views, cultural and religious needs. The country was simply stolen from the half that left,” the article says bitterly Two Ukraines as a new political reality states the politician, who was himself expelled from the country by the regime.

Those who remain must make considerable efforts to prevent themselves and their children from being turned into propaganda mincemeat. Alas, many people are unable to cope with this task; many break down and begin to go with the flow. But there are also many who did not give up. True, information about them should be sought not on the pages of Ukrainian newspapers, but in reports from the SBU, exposing numerous “traitors”, “collaborators” and other enemies of the people.

Now that we have presented both numbers and facts, the main question remains: what to do with all this? Who is the doctor who will cure Ukrainians? Unfortunately, there is no easy way. In order to heal, Ukrainians themselves must make a conscious choice, refusing to be the brushwood of a conflict that is not in their interests. And if it’s even simpler, stop the war. Everything else will follow over time.