![]() VASYLKOVSKYI: (Through interpreter) I did not hide it. Some killed themselves, and Vasylkovskyi says he was also struggling. ![]() KAKISSIS: He says he's watched fellow soldiers suffer since the fighting began in 2014 in eastern Ukraine. OLEKSANDER VASYLKOVSKYI: (Non-English language spoken). The founder is Oleksander Vasylkovskyi, a lieutenant colonel in the Ukrainian armed forces. The program was launched last summer with the help of Western donors. KAKISSIS: The soldiers here declined to give their last names for security reasons. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken). Here, it's so quiet, I started feeling like myself again. NAZAR: (Through interpreter) You hear constant shelling, explosions and shooting. KAKISSIS: The first step toward healing is relaxation, something you obviously can't do on the battlefield, says Nazar, a 25-year-old soldier. They feel guilty about their friends who died on the front line, and they even feel guilty about killing enemy soldiers. There is also this enormous sense of guilt. MAKSYM BAYDA: (Through interpreter) Many of these soldiers can't sleep. He says soldiers like him are at their most fragile A psychologist here, Maksym Bayda, watches Vlad closely. KAKISSIS: He turns pale and points to a photo on his phone of a smiling young man - his best friend Nikita, one of the dead. I don't know how to describe it other than a mass grave. VLAD: (Through interpreter) Nearly everyone in my unit died in Bakhmut. ![]() Vlad says he's been on the front line since last summer, most recently in the eastern city of Bakhmut, the site of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. A skinny 21-year-old named Vlad is with his older sister, Iryna. Some are with their wives, and they're holding hands. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, it's eucalyptus. Soldiers are reclining in puffy chairs around an indoor garden. And when soldiers arrive here, one of the first places they go is a room that sounds like this. JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: The healing center is tucked into an unremarkable building on the outskirts of town. NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports it offers a brief but badly needed respite. Military psychologists worried about the impact on their exhausted troops have opened a healing center in the country's northeast. The war grinds on for Ukraine's soldiers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |