Since the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian Veterans Fund has been implementing a micro-assistance project for veterans and their families, and is now launching a macro-financial support program for veteran businesses. About why not benefits, but systemic support is the most important way to integrate veterans into civilian life and how this is implemented in our country, Natalia Kalmykova, executive director of the Ukrainian Veterans Fund, spoke in an interview with Nadezhda Sukhoi " Support at the level of dignity "

“Returning home after hostilities, a veteran should become part of a society in which he is respected and strives to support, and not be treated as a “man with an outstretched hand,” notes Natalia Kalmykova.

According to her, the search for oneself and one's own business is more likely not the rehabilitation of veterans, but their reintegration - a return to civilian life..

Running your own business is one way to integrate defenders into civilian life after returning from war. But only one of the possible.

“Definitely, a person who fought must return to the place that he had before he went to fight, or find a new place. Someone understands that he is able to take entrepreneurial risks and opens his own business. But this is not a very large percentage of people, including veterans.. Because, in principle, the ability to conduct entrepreneurial activities has certain risks. In general, this is a talent,” notes the head of the Fund..

In her opinion, a military man, being released from the army, becoming a veteran, does not become a person who expects benefits, but continues to be a full-fledged, active, efficient member of society..

“This is positive both for the veteran himself and for his family, because it is a sense of his own ability and strength,” Kalmykova adds..

Therefore, receiving benefits, in his opinion, a person passes into the status of a person who cannot do something on his own..

“In the situation with veterans - and these are people who have had trials in life and passed them with dignity, it is better to talk not about benefits, but about systemic opportunities that the state can give. Therefore, the state must create opportunities for the transition from military service to civilian life, so that a person does not feel like a petitioner. It’s humiliating, and it’s not what veterans expect to feel humiliated,” notes the director of the Foundation.

Natalya Kalmykova calls the situation with the increase in the number of veterans after February 24 a challenge for the state and society.

“Because now she is lost, not even because the veteran man has returned and the employer does not want to take her, but because many enterprises have reduced their activities due to the war,” she adds.

According to Kalmykova, the task of the state is to create conditions for employers, businesses, and the restoration of the country.

" There is an update plan, there is an operating time based on the regulatory framework. On February 24, we found ourselves in a new reality, although the war has been going on since 2014. The 24th changed everything dramatically, the degree of involvement of society is completely different, the impact on the economy is enormously strong, in the bad sense of the word. New realities force us to plan differently,” notes the Director of the Foundation.

According to her, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs is conducting a comprehensive review of the benefits and preferences that are currently available in order to see how to survive in the new economic realities, what kind of economic support is planned from partner countries.

“The history of benefits, passed to us from the Soviet Union, will be unbearable for the economy. Therefore, it needs to be reviewed, and the ministry is engaged in this,” Natalya Kalmykova sums up..

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Recall that the Ukrainian Veterans Fund offers veterans and their families assistance in the amount of up to 20 thousand hryvnias for doing business.