Over four years of the conflict in the Donbass, more than half a million Ukrainian soldiers and officers took part in the battles in the east of the country. This in mid-February, said the chief military prosecutor of Ukraine Anatoly Matios. According to psychologists, demobilized veterans return home with a changed worldview, different from the former attitude to themselves and society, often with mental disorders. Often there are conflicts between them and the civilian population, which leads to serious consequences.

Major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Boris Gonchar demobilized in 2016. He was the commander of the 1st company of the 93 brigade, which held defense in the area of ??Butovka mine near Donetsk. Boris had experience of war in Afghanistan, therefore, by his own admission, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after fighting in Donbass did not feel.

Many of his fighters served in the Soviet Army, underwent intensive training at the training grounds, but were not morally ready for war, and after the shelling were completely demoralized, the major shares his impressions with DW. Having resigned from the army, he did not pass any rehabilitation.

"After demobilization, you can fill in a social service with a form for psychological or other rehabilitation and pass it. I was injured in the spine. I was in the hospital, then I spent 15 days at home and went back to war. There were fighting, and there was no time for rehabilitation, - recalls the major. - And after Afghanistan was never in the sanatorium ". Now he would be ready to improve his health a little, but there is no time to work, he has a family.

Psychological rehabilitation is included in the list of social services that Ukraine guarantees to veterans and participants in the power operation in the Donbass. According to Natalia Gritsun, the head of the social and professional adaptation and psychological rehabilitation department of the State Service of Ukraine for war veterans and ATU participants, the law on social services says, they are provided at will. No one can force a party to a conflict to receive legal advice, sanatorium treatment, social adaptation services or psychological rehabilitation, says Natalia.

"But PTSD is already a medical diagnosis, and its treatment is not a social service, but a medical one," she said.. - The Ministry of Health of Ukraine approved the protocols and standards for providing assistance to those to whom such a diagnosis was made by psychiatrists. Psychological help is our responsibility, and PTSD is the Ministry of Health. Doctors in Ukraine have 27 hospitals of war veterans, where the centers of medical and psychological rehabilitation ".

The documents of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine describe PTSD as a mental disorder that can develop after various disasters, shelling, bombing, threats to life during the war, sexual or physical violence, accidents, torture. They result in excessive excitability, obsessive memories of a traumatic event, nightmares, depression, insomnia, increased alertness and other.

Boris Volchikhin, director of the department of social protection and financial support of the same civil service, adds that over the past three years, more than 12,000 military personnel have undergone psychological rehabilitation. More than 27 thousand fighters and members of their families appealed in 2017 to the centers of social and psychological help.

The veteran of the operation in Donbass Pavel Slavinsky doubts the effectiveness of such assistance. According to him, any contact of the social service with the veteran of the service workers is already called social assistance and put yourself a mark "fulfilled". "If my family talked on the topic of benefits - this is help. If my wife said that I scream at night or I'm rude, and a social service worker, yesterday's graduate of the institute, talked to her-they already helped my family, "says Pavel.

In his words, the main thing here is the measurement of the nature of psychological or other help. "If 27 thousand people, whom the state helped, translate into man-hours, and this usually measures psychological assistance, it turns out that all Ukrainian social workers worked round the clock these days without days off," Slavinsky notes skeptically.

In 2014, he volunteered for the subdivision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, fought until the spring of 2016. Three years ago, at the height of the fighting, his wife left him. Such are the vicissitudes of the fate of the military, states Pavel. In his interview, he admitted that it was difficult for him to return to peaceful life, after the demobilization, he did not pass a full rehabilitation. But before each dispatch to the zone of fighting, there was a medical examination in the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.