“He got so drunk he couldn’t remember who was in front of him, confused us with those on the front lines, and yelled that he would kill us all,” said Aria, his daughter. She speaks on the condition that only her name will be used to protect her family’s privacy.
It is now widely understood that psychological scars linger long after combat is over. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin pushes for a bloody war in Ukraine, thousands of veterans are returning from the front lines to their families and a failed mental health care system that many experts say is not good. It’s only a matter of time before we were more ready to help them than when the war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, or after the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s.
A violent altercation involving soldiers returning from Ukraine this year has already broken the slumber of Russian society, which has sought to keep the war out of everyday life.
In September, a recently returned soldier from “Behind the Ribbon,” a euphemism for the Ukrainian border, walked into a pizzeria in Tula and beat the owner with a metal chair.
A month earlier, in Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border, a missile regiment commander shot a taxi driver who said he was against the invasion of Ukraine, according to local media.
The nine months of war in Ukraine have killed more Russian soldiers than the decade-long Soviet military mission in Afghanistan, which has already killed 15,000.
Journalist and veteran of the Second Chechen War, Dmitry Florin, said, “When a soldier returns from Ukraine, the first to suffer will be family and friends.” It would be a nightmare if it later started to become apparent to them that it was one of the greatest deceptions and was sent there like cattle to kill people at their own hands.”
“Following their kin, nations will be the next targets to put their wrath and their chief enemy on,” Florin added.
Florin said his tour in Chechnya has been haunted by a nightmare in which the general orders him to return, even though he quit the army years ago.
He said that after returning from the war, the authorities had effectively abandoned many of his comrades. Promised financial payments were often never received — Florin sued his local military office for eight years to get him — and officials dismissed their requests for rehabilitation and psychological assistance. Did.
According to Florin, the only counseling was a mandatory “preparation” session before being dispatched to Chechnya, which he said felt like an ideological indoctrination with a “hate lesson.”
The war in Ukraine stems from the lack of support provided to Russian men born in the late 1990s or early 2000s who were engaged in military campaigns in Afghanistan and Chechnya in the 1960s and 1980s. It means work. , the Kremlin refused to call it “war”.
While the Kremlin’s use of euphemisms is commonly seen as part of a propaganda campaign, the lack of a formal declaration of war could have legal and financial implications for Russian soldiers, resulting in You may not technically be eligible for veteran status.
Soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya were ultimately given veteran status and modest benefits similar to those who served in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, but they bask in the glory. There was very little.
The conflict in Afghanistan, a foreign land that was at first hidden from the population, and the “counter-terrorism” operation to suppress Chechen guerrillas in rebellious territories became the pillar of Russia’s Red Army against Nazi Germany. looked alien compared to the defense of mainland Russia. Soviet identity.
Instead, “Afghanistan”, to which Afghan veterans were commonly referred to in Russia, was quickly forgotten by the country and found no sympathy with the general public. has only exacerbated the prevalence and untreated condition of post-traumatic stress experienced by thousands of veterans.
“Returning from Afghanistan, without a job and education, they could not find a purpose for themselves. Yes, ”Russian Academy of Administration, four years after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. “They no longer have the power to make money and their pensions are not enough to starve them,” the report said.
And even when surgeries and prosthetics for missing limbs eventually became available, there was little to no psychological support for veterans to cope with the trauma they suffered.
Even now, there is no centralized Russian rehabilitation program for veterans of military conflicts, according to Russian grassroots aid groups, and those returning from Ukraine are being helped by private organizations to deal with the growing number of people in need of help. Because they struggle to do so, they risk being left to their own devices. called veterans.
“There is no rehabilitation program per se because no one tests veterans. [psychological] trauma, and its effects on the physical state of the body,” the group said. “There is no discrete approach to assessing combatant condition, and a common, single, ineffective template is often applied collectively.”
According to veterans, the Russian government provides subsidies to veterans’ unions and individual groups founded by ex-combatants, effectively outsourcing counseling and rehabilitation. The existing network of government-run military sanatoriums, a relic from the Soviet era where wounded ex-soldiers could spend weeks recovering, has also proven ineffective. There are very few such facilities, and even fewer with special programs for veterans.
Some Afghans and later Chechen veterans formed the core of organized crime groups that defined much of the 1990s in Russia. In Russia in the 1990s and 2000s, it was common to see amputees in military uniform begging for money in the streets, and veterans busking in town squares singing wartime songs. Alcoholism and drug use are on the rise among former combatants and are often closely linked to domestic violence.
Svetlana Alexievich’s collection of first-hand testimonies from the war in Afghanistan, The Jinky Boys, is perhaps one of the most complete depictions of the turmoil experienced by soldiers and their families, with a son working in the kitchen. It opens with the monologue of a mother who killed her neighbor with an ax and put it back in the cupboard as if nothing had happened.
The book depicts forgotten soldiers left to fight their own demons and chaotic Russian bureaucracy.
“When Afghans came to the authorities to settle some issues, they were always told, ‘I didn’t send you to Afghanistan,'” retired Colonel Leonid Khabarov said. A 2019 Present Time TV special commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal. He cites years of legal battles over state-promised compensation and health care.
Alya said her family was dealing with a severe case of PTSD as Vladimir never heard the word PTSD later in life and had severely limited access to psychological support. I noticed
There was no individual consultation meeting. Vladimir attended several group meetings set up for Afghan veterans, but they only provoked him, leading to drunken violence at each rally. It was especially hard on my son.
For years, Aria’s mother tried to protect her children from abuse, but constant beatings undermined her mental and physical health. She also developed alcoholism, rarely left home in her later years, and recently died of liver failure.Fearing that the abuse and trauma would be passed on to new generations, Aria and her brother and sister never married. had no children.
“We often discuss with my brother. Based on our family experience, should we have children? Will we be able to raise normal people or will they be our parents?” Aria said.
“People who will soon be returning from Ukraine are not only traumatized, they are corrupted by forgiving everything,” Aria said. “This is not just for families. It will pour into the streets. “There will be thousands of men, just like my father.
